Ghosts
by EeveeNicks
Summary: Immediately following Prime 3 and the fall of Phaaze, it's the height of the Space Pirate War, and the Phazon crisis has finally been resolved. Samus Aran must now deal with the after-effects of her phazon corruption and taking up the slack of the other three hunters she had been forced to put down. And it seems the Space Pirates are not the only ones who wish for her demise...
1. Ch 1: The Weapon

**Update:** This story is being abandoned on this site and continued on Archive of Our Own. Please see last chapter if you are interested in the reasoning.

 **Author's Note:** Hello, everyone. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with it, but this story is a part of my "Human Series." More specifically, it takes place in the same AU, 5 years prior to the events of "Human."

I realized that in about a week, it will be one full year since the last installment of that series, "Zero Host," was completed. So now I've decided to come back to this AU that I've enjoyed playing in since 2015, and I'm starting a new full-length story. And since it takes place well before any of the other installments in that series, they are not required reading to understand what is happening in this one.

Essentially, this story is what happens when I get bored of waiting for details about Metroid Prime 4 to be released and decide to make up my own story instead. I sincerely hope you enjoy it, although readers who have found it because they were following "Seven Wonders" should be advised that this series contains more mature content and has a very different tone than my fluffy romances.

Anyway, without further ado, I give you the first chapter of "Ghosts," my Metroid Prime 4 fan fic. Thank you for reading, and as always, comments are sincerely appreciated.

 **Chapter 1: The Weapon**

"Chairman Keaton?" A humanoid woman stepped through the doorway of the Galactic Federation Chairman's Chambers. She was a short, almost pinkish being who looked and dressed like a human woman from the waste up, but her lower body appeared equine in nature much like the centaurs of mythology. Thick-rimmed plastic fuchsia glasses took up much of her face and brought out the bright magenta of her hair. "I have a Mr. Samus Aran here to see you now."

Chairman Keaton regarded her from his regal desk, which blended perfectly into the rest of the dome-shaped office. One-way windows spanned the expanse of the circular walls, framed by golden arches that reached up to the dome ceiling and punctuated in between by lavish oil paintings of past Chairmen. Above their heads was a massive mural of the constellations and stars that made up the territory of the Galactic Federation itself.

The only things that seemed out of place were Chairman Keaton himself and the tall blonde human woman standing behind him. Standing about four feet tall with wrinkly green skin, the perpetually annoyed looking little alien did not seem to fit his role as Federation Chairman, but he had held down the position for the past five standard years.

Keaton nodded dismissively to his equine secretary, paying no mind to the unremarkable human woman behind him. "Mr. Samus Aran?" he asked with the slightest hint of amusement in his voice. "Of course. Send him in."

"Yes, Sir." The secretary nodded and stepped back out of the gilded double doors only to be replaced a moment later by a very tall human man.

At least six and a half feet tall, the man had a massive build that looked as though he had been chiseled by master sculptors into the perfect model of a human male. His skin was tan, and he had large, strikingly blue eyes with thick black hair that fell down to his shoulders. He wore a standard black fight suit that was just tight enough to outline his muscular expanse while still leaving some things to the imagination. Around his waist her wore a utility belt, but security must have taken his weaponry because the gun holsters at his hips were empty.

Keaton did the wrinkly, hairless alien equivalent of raising an eyebrow at the young man who couldn't have been aged more than twenty-five standard years.

"Samus Aran, I presume?" the alien asked, giving the man another long look up and down and thinking that he looked like something off the cover of a sleazy human romance novel.

"Yes, Sir," the tall man replied, his deep voice smooth and lush. "I am galactic bounty hunter Samus Aran."

The man then noticed the woman standing behind the Chairman and found her silent presence odd. Unlike the rest of the people in the Capitol building, she was not dressed for business or formality. She had her long hair in a high ponytail and wore a black hooded sweatshirt and a pair of faded jeans. Her face was completely unreadable are she just watched him.

"That must have been a difficult battle, Aran," the Chairman continued as though he and the man called Samus were completely alone. "The Marine doctors had some doubts that you would ever awaken from that coma or survive the Phazon infection, but here you are, standing before me. Clear as day." He frowned.

"It was a difficult battle, Sir." The man stepped forward and took hold of one of the chairs across from Keaton's desk. "May I?" he asked as he went to take a seat.

"No," said Keaton, and the man stopped mid-motion, caught completely off guard by the Chairman's refusal to a question he had only considered a polite formality.

"I apologize then," the man said, pushing the chair back to its original position and taking a step back. His eyes flicked back over to the blonde woman, but she may as well have been a ghost that only he could see. She remained unreadable and silent.

"You see, Mr. Aran," Keaton continued taking on a vaguely mocking tone, "I don't want to keep you here long, not what with the galaxy seeming to be in perpetual danger and whatnot… especially not after the deaths of your three closest competitors. It seems you've got us a bit backed into a corner here in regard to needing your services."

"Once again, Chairman Keaton, I am very sorry to hear of the deaths of the other hunters." The man's tone was appropriately somber as he regarded the little green alien. "I wish I had been able to save them all."

Keaton nodded. "I'm sure you are. At any rate, the military thanks you for your service, and I wanted to extend that thanks to you myself. Now, if you'll head back outside and speak with my secretary, she'll see you to your next appointment. It seems there are several journalistic publications all dying to get their hands on the real Samus Aran. Everyone's just been dying to learn your identity since your famed mission to Zebes."

"Of course, Sir." The man nodded and extended his hand for Keaton to shake, but the alien just looked at it. Confused, the man then extended his hand to the blond woman, but she remained silent and stoic as ever. After a while of feeling awkward, the man called Samus withdrew his hand and just nodded again. "Right then. Thank you, Sir. I'll be on my way then. Shouldn't keep the galaxy waiting."

He turned to leave, only glancing back once more as he approached the gilded doors and began to open them. He gave the woman one last curious glance before disappearing through the doors and presumably going to Keaton's secretary.

Once he was gone, Chairman Keaton turned to the tall blonde woman behind him and gave her a skeptical look. "That's the one you're passing off as Samus Aran?"

The woman just nodded, looking over to the large doors. "He'll do quite nicely for my purposes," she said in a deep voice. "Doesn't ask too many questions. Never asked to see me without my armor. Doesn't try to add any of his own style to the character. Very attractive by human standards. They'll slap his face across a few holo-tabloids and they'll sell like hot cakes."

Keaton nodded, noting the differences between the woman and the human man who had just left. While they were both tall and very muscular, that was where the similarities ended. The woman before him was much harder looking, less like a fitness model and more like a battle-hardened soldier. She had some scarring visible on her face and neck, but the alien knew the rest of her body showed much clearer signs of the abuse it had endured over the years. There was a sharp edge to her, a constant sense of uneasiness, and the Chairman knew from experience that she was always ready to act at a split second's notice. Everywhere she went, she always seemed to be anticipating a fight.

"Well," the Chairman scoffed, turning back to look at the holoscreens on his desk. "Let's hope he's more believable than that green haired woman a few years ago who claimed to be Samus Aran."

The woman frowned. "People are much more willing to believe I'm a man than to believe any woman claiming my name. So let's play into that instead. Besides, female humans and male-attracted-male humans will be all over this guy. They'll like his butt and fancy hair. Your average human family will be much more likely to believe him if he comes across their holoscreens after dinner than they would believe someone who looked like me. And then the media will finally have a face for Samus Aran and I won't have to deal with people trying to catch me without my armor."

Keaton silently regarded the real Samus for a moment as he parsed out what to say. "You've hired actors to play you before to throw the media off your trail. This is the first time you've actually arranged for one of them to walk through my chambers to keep up your charade."

Samus walked over to one of the long windows that lined the walls and gazed out of it. "I've never blown up an entire planet before."

The Chairman nodded as he continued to watch Samus. Normally it would be unheard of for anyone to come into the Chairman's Chambers in such informal attire and possessing the types of weaponry he knew she was concealing, but as ended up being the case more often than he cared for, he had made an exception for Samus Aran.

"Yes, well," he said, "I don't think that blowing up Phaaze could be avoided, although I know plenty of high-ranking officials who would have loved to have gotten their hands on more Phazon to continue the military's work."

Samus frowned as she turned back to the Chairman, the light illuminating a series of dark blue vein-like markings around her right eye. "I can't say I'm too torn up over that. They nearly killed me with that fucking PED suit. Besides, last I heard, the Federation had a ban on building bioweapons."

"They're not bioweapons if the substance is only being used to power their suits, Aran."

"That's the thing," she replied with a sour look on her face. "That's impossible. I saw it with the Pirates. With the Hunters. Even with Ridley to an extent. There is no way to just do a few mechanical enhancements. The Phazon takes over every time. It poisons the mind."

"Hmph," Keaton scoffed again, looking her up and down. "Says the woman who used Phazon enhancements on two separate missions and lived to tell about it. And I don't recall it ever poisoning your mind."

Samus didn't say anything as she turned to look back out of the window, concealing a slight tremor in her right hand as she did so. "No, I suppose it didn't."

"Of course, you've never been quite right in the head as long as I've known you," the alien said dismissively. His tone gave no indication that he considered the remark an insult, only a statement of fact, and Samus didn't bother to argue with him.

"I suppose I'm just so used to being out of my mind it wasn't much different than a typical Tuesday."

Keaton made a chuffing sound. He knew from prior experiences that Samus rarely had any idea which day of the week it was and seemed to operate on some kind of internal calendar only she understood.

Samus inhaled deeply as she felt the tremor in her right hand growing more pronounced. She put it inside the pocket of her jeans as she turned back to the Chairman. "I really should be going anyway."

Keaton nodded. "Frankly I'm not sure why you've been around this long to begin with. Getting too lonely out in space?"

Samus snorted. "Hardly. Just dreading leaving this office and stepping out into the damn crowds of Daiban. You know I've never been particularly fond of people."

"If you're not too fond of people, then why are you still talking to me?" The perpetually annoyed-looking alien looked at Samus with his usual bored indifference.

Samus just shrugged as she turned and walked toward the big double doors. "I guess you know how to contact me next time you've got a contract you need carried out."

"Yes…" Keaton replied, his reluctance evident in his voice. "Unfortunately with the other three top bounty hunters dead, I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot more of each other before the war is over."

It was Samus's turn to scoff as she looked back at the Chairman. "Don't be ridiculous, Keaton. You know I won't live to see the end of this war."

Then the mercenary just turned and left, letting herself through the heavy double doors and breezing straight past the equine secretary as she made her way out to the corridors of the Capitol Building of Daiban. She walked quickly, keeping her head down as she made her way through the busy government building. It was crowded with every species of sentient beings from planets all across Federation territory, and fortunately they were too distracted with their own work to pay Samus any mind.

If there was one thing Samus Aran truly despised aside from her enemies, it was crowds. Already hyper vigilant and with senses more acute than those of any standard human, she found the extreme level of stimulation overwhelming and always got nervous that if there were to be any kind of attack, she wouldn't see it coming and be able to respond in time. Not to mention the fact that large crowds of people in crowded Federation buildings were prime targets for any Space Pirates who might try to launch a strike.

Going outside wasn't much better. The thoroughfares were just as crowded with pedestrians, and ground vehicles made traversing them all the more treacherous. Samus just hurried through as fast as she could, ignoring anyone trying to stop her to ask for donations or the occasional male human who felt the need to comment on the appearance of anyone of her sex.

She didn't slow her nearly inhuman walking speed until she got to the commercial hangar where she had docked her ship. Not bothering to look the front desk attendant in the eyes, she swiped her access card and bolted through the heavy steel doors that opened to reveal the long steal corridor that led to the docking bays. It didn't take her long to find the number of the door her own ship was behind, and as she swiped the card once more, the hexagonal door opened from the center outward, and she stepped through it to find her ship right where she had docked it.

It wasn't her usual ship, the round golden starship that had become associated with her on the news or in other media. This was her second ship, her war ship. It was the one she had used in her most recent battles, flying between Bryyo, Norion, Elysia, Phaaze, and even the Space Pirate Homeworld itself. Like her regular ship, its coloring matched that of her Varia Suit, a bright golden orange with a green forward window, but unlike the other ship it had two massive thrusters on either side with mounted canons. In fact, this ship had several upgrades her regular ship lacked, including some that were slightly less than completely legal.

The only upgrade that she was concerned with today, however, was its cloaking device. Made of Chozo technology, the cloaking feature was beyond what any currently living being had ever created. It was nearly perfect, capable of rendering the entire ship basically invisible and completely undetectable on modern surveillance systems. And it was how she had managed to get her allegedly destroyed ship onto a planet like Daiban in the first place.

As she approached the ship, a platform lowered, and she stepped onto it as it rose up, bringing her into her ship's medical bay. Unlike her regular ship, there were no living quarters on board the war ship. It only had the hyper-advanced medical bay, a small bathroom, and the cockpit. Most nights, she only ever slept in her pilot's chair, regardless of which ship she was on. On her other ship, the room that was supposed to serve as her bedroom was little more than an armory, whereas on this ship, she didn't bother keeping her rifles and other weaponry out of sight. The walls of both the medical bay and cockpit were lined with guns.

Normally, she would have activated her armor as soon as she got out of view of the people on Daiban, but she didn't this time. Instead, she opted to walk straight into the cockpit and sit down in her chair. She scanned her palm on one of the panels and a glowing white half orb appeared on her left side. As she placed her hand upon it, she was just glad it wasn't the right side as now the tremor in her right hand was growing significantly worse and starting to move up her arm. She took it as a sign she needed to hurry up and get into space, and she impatiently waited as the doors of her docking bay opened and her ship's cloaking device booted up to full power.

Technically, she had listed this ship as destroyed in her report after the destruction of Phaaze. It wasn't that she intended to commit insurance fraud, although that had been the sort of by-product of her actions, but her intent had simply been to make sure no one knew she still possessed it. After all, it did contain several illegal upgrades as well as a vast amount of Chozo technology she didn't want to fall into the wrong hands. Though these days, she found herself wondering if her hands weren't the wrong ones.

The ship took off and flew straight into the sky as soon as the doors finished opening. Since no one could see her, she had to be careful to avoid all of the sky traffic as she blasted out of Daiban's atmosphere. And as soon as she was just far enough away, she made the jump into hyperdrive, holding her course until she was several light-years away from the Capitol Planet of Daiban. Only then, on the outskirts of Deep Space, did she put the ship into a sort of slow cruise as she got up from her pilot's seat and made her way back into the medical bay.

But Samus didn't go for anything in the high tech medical bay. Instead, she turned and walked into her bathroom. The tremor in her right arm was very uncomfortable at this point and severe enough that she knew the arm was effectively useless. Pulling her ponytail away from her face, she knelt over the toilet and heaved heavily before vomiting up the contents of her stomach. Trying to catch her breath, she failed as another wave of sickness overtook her and she threw up again. The process continued until she found herself violently dry heaving, nothing left inside of her to come up. And only then did she let herself sink to the bathroom floor, holding her throbbing head as she waited for the room to stop spinning.

The only silver lining was that the tremor in her arm had calmed down considerably while she was being sick to her stomach, and now it was only a small tremor in her hand once again. She closed her eyes as images of her recent mission flashed across her vision, images of the other hunters she had been forced to kill, but more importantly, she saw images of the bright blue phazon.

She envisioned the phazon stores she had seen on every planet, even the living world of Phaaze itself, and she found herself craving it. Ravenously. She couldn't get the image of the radioactive blue substance out of her head, wishing she could have just one more injection of it, one more trip into hypermode, where everything in the world would fall away except for what was immediately in front of her and the massive amount of power she had been able to unleash from her arm cannon.

The worst part of it, however, was knowing that even though it had been killing her from within, the lack of phazon in her system was what was making her sick right now. She had functionally become an addict over the month that her body had been corrupted by the substance, and when it was suddenly ripped from her during following the destruction of Phaaze, it had led to her being sicker than she had ever been in her life.

Standing up, she flushed the toilet and then bent over the sink and brushed her teeth. She hated the sour metallic taste it left in her mouth. While this wasn't the first time she had been on her ship in these few weeks following the destruction of Phaaze, it was the first time she had actually been cleared to leave Daiban.

For the first two weeks following her mission, she had been under strict quarantine in one of the high security medical facilities on the Capitol Planet. There she had gone through the worst of the Phazon withdrawal, not that she remembered most of it. Once they thought she was stable, they had kept her in quarantine for another week as she went over an intensive psychological evaluation, which she had of course faked her way through with a level of skill that surprised even her. Over the years, she must have gotten better at lying to doctors than she thought she had because in their final report to the Chairman, they said they found no evidence that the phazon exposure had altered her mental state in any way and stated that she should be free to go. Their only findings were the same as always, that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and a pathologically antisocial disposition, and they had prescribed her medication accordingly with the recommendation of long-term therapy.

Not that Samus ever took the psychiatric drugs people prescribed to her. She just didn't like the way they made her feel, dulling her edge slightly and making her less on her guard. Samus liked those aspects of herself. They were what made her such an excellent weapon. And while she didn't argue about the existence of her very obvious post-traumatic stress issues, she didn't think she was nearly as much of a sociopath as people seemed to think she was. It wasn't that she actually hated people or lacked empathy. It was simply that being around other people made her uncomfortable. Being around other people had never ended well for her or anyone around her.

As she sat back down in her pilot's chair, she found herself thinking back to the other three hunters, the ones who had died on her last mission. Once again, she found herself the only survivor of a catastrophe, with all the guilt that generally entailed. She truly had no idea why she always ended up surviving while those around her perished, and she rejected the idea that she was simply the strongest out of them. After all, no one else had ended up in a coma for a month following the initial corruption. While she had slept in the hospital facility, they were out doing their assigned missions. And she doubted it was because she was somehow the strongest willed out of the lot, though she did possess a horrible stubbornness and a refusal to yield to the wills of other.

She thought perhaps there was some truth in what Keaton had said and that perhaps it was the fact that she felt like she was always teetering on the edge of losing her mind that had spared her from surrendering to the phazon the way every other hunter eventually had. After all, she had years of experience with resisting the less wholesome impulses her mind seemed obsessed with forcing upon her.

She just sighed as she turned her ship's motors off and reached into a compartment on the ship's console and pulled out a full bottle of whiskey, her usual poison of choice before all of the phazon stuff had gone down. She opened it and took a long swig, draining about a third of the bottle in one gulp. Her genetic enhancements had left her with an unfortunate tolerance for most intoxicants, and the frequency with which she imbibed didn't help matters much either.

Leaning back in her chair, she was ready for a night of getting drunk and trying to purge all of the memories from the last two months out of her head, but even as she relaxed, she felt her mind going back to that last mission. More specifically, she pictured their deaths again, the same ones she had pictured every night that she had been in the Galactic Federation's hospital and living facilities. Rundas rescuing her from falling to her death, only to be impaled on his own ice shard. Ghor and his demeanor before the corruption, and then what he had become after. Her desperate attempts to save both of them.

And then there was Gandrayda. Her mind lingered longest on Gandrayda. But then it had been lingering for years on Gandrayda, her former lover and hated rival. There was a lot to unpack when it came to thinking about Gandrayda. But while the Jovian had always had a wicked streak in her, the Phazon corruption had made her downright sadistic. Even to the point of torturing Samus in her final moments, shifting into the shape of each hunter Samus had failed to save and finally into Samus herself as she lay dying. At the time, Samus had thought it was a cruel look into her inevitable future, her own death from corruption.

But then she had lived. Somehow. Like she always did.

She took another long drink from her whiskey bottle, leaning back in her chair and just staring at the ceiling of the cockpit. She had held no love for the three hunters while they were alive, and she had killed them all when it came down to it. Killed them with perfect efficiency like the weapon she was. But it had affected her, affected her to the point where she had needed a moment to grieve alone on Elysia before returning with Admiral Dane's fleet.

She was about to finish off her first bottle of the night when a message appeared suddenly on the main holoscreen in front of her forward window. Hoping it wasn't an emergency of some kind, she stashed the liquor bottle as fast as she could and wiped her mouth as she sat up, hoping to make herself at least reasonably presentable for the Chairman if he were the one calling.

But even as she accepted the transmission, no one's face came up on the screen. It was completely dark, though she knew it had made connection.

 _"Samus Aran,"_ a synthesized disembodied voice called out to her from the dark screen, _"I see you've finally made it off Daiban and off of the Chairman's lap for the time being."_

Samus frowned. This wasn't the first time she had received a call like this, though she hadn't gotten one since before this most recent mission.

"You're very observant," she replied, hitting a few buttons on the side of her dash in an attempt to trace the origin of the transmission. "You've been quiet for a while. I was starting to think you'd forgotten about me."

 _"I hope you didn't think that pretty boy you hired to play you was going to throw me off of your trail. I doubt you're that foolish."_

"'That pretty boy,' as you refer to him, was never intended to throw any serious combatants off of my trail, just to give the media a poster boy so they'll stop hounding me in my free time. I would never assume that you would mistake an underwear model from Melpomene for the real thing. If you're a skilled enough stalker to call my ship directly and to know which planets I've been to, then you're at least a skilled enough stalker to know I'm not a human male."

 _"Do you really think you should have flown so far into the recesses of space? Just to poison yourself and brood over your most recent kills?"_

Samus frowned and crossed her arms. "And what makes you think I'm doing that?"

 _"Because I know how bioweapons and the self-righteous scum of the Federation act. You enjoyed killing those other bounty hunters, even if you won't admit to that to anyone. You enjoy the kill in general, whether it's Space Pirates or your competition. And the phazon only amplified your bloodlust. But you can't let yourself acknowledge that. So you make a show of mourning even if it's only to yourself. Because that still gives you plausible deniability that you're the soulless killer you know yourself to be."_

"I've never made a show of mourning." Samus glanced over to the other computers that were trying to trace the source of the transmission but they didn't seem able to follow the signal. "I know exactly who and what I am."

 _"And what is that?"_

"A weapon." It wasn't a lie. That was precisely what she had been made into and precisely what she acted as. From the time she had been a toddler and the Chozo scientists had opened her skull and installed the powersuit interfacing hardware into her brain, that was all she was ever destined to become.

 _"A living weapon is an abomination, and dependence upon it is a testament to the Federation's failings. And even you must see that."_

Samus shrugged even though she knew the owner of the voice couldn't see her. She was running out of patience but she needed to keep the speaker talking if she had any hope left of tracing the signal. "I'm willing and they pay well. Not to mention the fact that we have common enemies. If the price of galactic peace and the deaths of every last Space Pirate means aligning myself with the Federation, I see no disgrace in that."

 _"Perhaps they would have done better with a different ally, but you personally saw to the deaths of the three who could rival you. And now you've flown so far from Daiban, leaving the galaxy without its self-proclaimed protector."_

Samus's eyes widened at the same moment that the transmission trackers began to beep. As she looked over to her holoscreens, she heard the voice laugh as she saw its location. Only one solar system over from Daiban and getting closer by the second.

"What the hell are you planning to do to Daiban?" she demanded, fury in her voice as she shouted at the unknown entity.

But the transmission cut out there, leaving her alone in her ship once more, deep in the abyss of space and light-years away from where she needed to be.


	2. Ch 2: Attack on Daiban

**Author's note:** I can't believe it's been one year today since I finished Zero Host and thought I had finished with this series. Although I did always think I'd come back at some point and write a story earlier in the timeline. I just hadn't expected it would be my version of Prime 4.

Anyway, about this chapter, I feel like there is something I should note. I've long considered it illogical that all species in the galaxy would experience sexual dimorphism in the same way that humans do, and I imagine that the Galactic Federation would likely have come up with the proper language to express this fact. There is a character in this chapter of indeterminate sex and/or a sex that does not correlate with the human species so I've decided to use third-person gender neutral pronouns to describe this character. I didn't want to use they/their/them since it would be difficult to keep track of when I was using them to designate multiple characters or to designate the specific character. So I decided it was logical that language would have expanded to include distinctive third person neutral pronouns.

So for purposes of this story I have decided to use xe/xir/xem instead of they/their/them (subject pronoun form, possessive form, and direct object form respectively) since of all the distinct third person gender neutral pronouns I've seen, the "xe" set is the oldest one still in use in some places, harkening back to the 1970's. (Plus I just really like the letter "x", particularly in sci-fi settings.)

So I apologize if this causes any confusion, but I thought this was the best solution. I've been wanting to work with non-male-or-female species since the earlier days of the Human Series but never got around to making it explicitly stated. At any rate, I hope you enjoy the story and this chapter regardless of pronoun usage. As always feedback is greatly appreciated. :)

 **Chapter 2: Attack on Daiban**

Samus's blood ran cold as the transmission faded out, leaving her alone on her ship with no way to get back into contact with the owner of the mysterious voice. The source of the transmission had been a ship only one solar system away from Daiban, and the speaker had somehow known both that she had abandoned Daiban and that she was light-years away and would never reach it as quickly.

"Dammit," Samus muttered under her breath. "Fuck!"

She could feel her heart rate rising as her fury grew. As her adrenaline spiked, she fired up her ship's engines, setting the coordinates for Daiban and getting ready to make an immediate jump into hyperspace. She would never make it there first, but maybe she could still help… somehow.

It was only a few seconds before launching into hyperspace that she thought to send a message out to both Chairman Keaton and Fleet Admiral Dane in the hope that at least one of them would get it before her mysterious stalker showed up and carried out whatever was planned for the Capitol planet.

No sooner than the message sent out and hyperspace entered, however, did Samus get an alert of a second incoming transmission. She answered it as soon as it began to ring, hoping it would be the mysterious assailant, but to her surprise, it was Chairman Keaton. The wrinkly green alien stared down at her from the holoscreen projected over her forward window.

"Samus Aran," the Chairman demanded, glaring at her. "What do you mean Daiban is in trouble and to prepare for an attack? Is this some kind of a threat?"

Samus scowled, looking up from the controls to the small angry alien. "It's a warning!" she snapped. "Not a threat! Some unknown sent me a transmission on my ship and threatened the Federation. I traced it to one solar system over from Daiban and approaching fast. You need to lock down the planet, or at least the Capitol city!"

It was Keaton's turn to scowl and glare back at her. "Are you insane? Do you know what would be involved in locking down an entire planet? We have plenty of military force surrounding Daiban, and I can assure you that if we were in any danger then they—"

The transmission cut out briefly as the sound of an explosion erupted from Keaton's end.

Samus bit her tongue, trying to push her ship to fly faster, but she was already at its maximum speed. She may have been traveling through hyperspace, but it was still a very long trip, and as the transmission flickered back on into view, she saw Keaton's round eyes bugging out on her.

"How far out are you?" the Chairman demanded as he looked over his shoulder right in time to hear another explosion go off somewhere in the city nearby. "You couldn't have gone far… you didn't leave here that long ago!"

Samus didn't answer, preparing for her exit out of hyper-drive and making sure she didn't miss her mark. She was cutting it close, getting much closer to the planet itself than was advisable when flying through hyperspace, but it was a risk she was willing to take. Whoever had called her earlier certainly had not been bluffing about the fate of Daiban, and the mercenary repeatedly cursed herself and her own foolishness for having left the planet unprotected.

Her ship's cloaking device would come in handy again, she realized as she made the leap out of hyperspace and directly into reentry of the planet's atmosphere. Traveling at the speed she was, she knew that even though people couldn't see her ship, they'd still be able to hear the massive sonic boom as she flew overhead, possibly mistaking it for another explosion.

Not that it mattered. She could already see explosions in the distance as she sped toward the Capitol City. Trying to figure out the source of the violence, she used her ship's scanners to check around the area for anything unusual, but the overpopulated city was far too dense for the ship to tell what was going on. It didn't sense any foreign technology, only energy signatures that were recognized in Federation databases.

She was getting desperate for clues when suddenly her front holoscreen clicked on again, still displaying nothing, but she could hear the same voice from earlier coming over a new transmission.

 _"Where are you, Samus Aran?"_ the voice taunted her. _"I've already set off three bombs on Daiban. Are you going to make me set off a fourth? Where will you tell these people their beloved savior was when they needed you?"_

Samus grunted, her frustration boiling over into rage.

"What the hell are you goading me for?" she demanded, getting closer to the Capitol City by the second and interpreting the voice's question to mean the speaker had not been able to detect her ship entering the planet's atmosphere. "You expect me to fly all the way over to Daiban just to stop you? The Federation has its own damn military! Leave me out of it!"

A computer terminal beeped as it locked onto the source of the transmission, and Samus smirked wickedly as her ship's system's pinpointed the terrorist's location. The voice sounded like it was saying something again, but she cut off the transmission, severing their connection entirely.

"Okay, Janet," she said to her ship's AI. "Take me directly to the transmission source. Ready the hatch for my exit, and then get off this planet. Execute the docking sequence at my second hangar at Aliehs III."

The ship's AI processed the series of commands, queuing them in sequential order as the pilot got up out of her seat and headed over to the back of the ship. She was close enough now that she could see dark smoke billowing up from buildings through her forward window, and she knew she had to act quickly. Whoever had set off the bombs was working fast and likely wouldn't stick around long after the objective was met.

As the bounty hunter ran to the back of her ship, she threw off her sweatshirt, leaving her in a tight top that exposed her abdomen and revealing a very strange looking artifact around her neck. There was a metal compact of some sort chained to her neck by a short and heavy metal chain. It looked like a thick disk with a sharp S-shaped lightning bolt going through it in the center. The disk itself was no larger than Samus's palm, but as she took it in her hand, it began to glow.

Running toward the exit hatch, the bounty hunter was suddenly enveloped in a golden orange light that grew brighter until it obscured her image entirely. When the light faded, she was dressed from head to toe in her signature Chozo battle armor, the golden orange Varia suit with its massive shoulders, red helmet, and green visor. A heavy green cannon took the place of her right forearm.

She wasted no time as she stepped into the hologram and the elevator rose up to the open hatch. Within seconds, she was standing on top of the nearly invisible ship, her HUD flashing the location of her target as she waited for just the right moment to jump. And when that moment came, she launched herself into a high forward jump, summersaulting through the air and forming the electrical force field of the screw attack around her body. She flew like an electrified buzz saw through the air, straight into the side of a tall building whose reinforced walls she tore through like paper.

Once she was inside the building, she landed on one knee and promptly jumped to her feet, arm cannon at the ready as she prepared to face the target her ship's sensors had locked onto. And though she didn't show any outward sign of it, she was very surprised to see the figure standing before her.

"Sylux," she said, the synthesized voice of her power suit coming out much deeper than her own.

If a suit of armor could look surprised, the being called Sylux seemed even more surprised than Samus was.

"How did you find me?" the being asked, looking Samus up and down.

Standing roughly as tall as Samus herself, Sylux was an entity of totally unknown origin. Though the appearance of the cobalt blue armor illuminated by green lights suggested its occupant was humanoid, nothing was truly known about the mysterious bounty hunter who had disappeared after a certain incident in the Alimbic Cluster. Even Samus's scan visor could not determine anything other than the fact that the strange-looking blue armor was apparently made using Federation technology. Sylux's species and sex were both indeterminate.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Sylux?" Samus demanded, trying to get a read on the situation. Thermal and x-ray scans didn't show anything amiss or potentially explosive in the immediate vicinity, and she wondered why this mysterious bounty hunter was cropping up here after all these years.

Sylux stood in a rigid fighting stance, and xe held a weapon Samus recognized as the shock coil xe had wielded on their previous encounter.

"I didn't think you were coming, Samus," xe said, also using a synthesized voice. "But I've been prepared just in case."

Samus fired a missile at the other bounty hunter, but xe dodged it easily and fired back a blast from the shock coil. Samus had no trouble evading xir attack, and for a moment the two hunters stood sizing each other up.

Following the deaths of Ghor, Gandrayda, and Rundas, there weren't too many people who could rival Samus in terms of speed, strength, and raw power, but Sylux was definitely one of the few who could. Samus had only encountered xem on one other occasion, a quest in which she had competed against Sylux and five other bounty hunters to find some alleged "ultimate power" in a sector known as the Alimbic Cluster. While there had been no true "ultimate power" to speak of, it had taken her and the other hunters into several wild battles culminating in a nearly lethal encounter in a prison complex called the Oubliette.

Like the rest of the hunters aside from Samus, Sylux had escaped when they had come face to face with a rather nasty entity name Gorea. Only Samus had stayed behind to kill the strange beast and complete her mission.

Still, of all the hunters she had encountered in that battle, Sylux was the one about whom she knew the least. All she knew about xem was that xe harbored an intense hatred of the Galactic Federation, and as an extension of that, xe also hated Samus herself. Samus didn't know the reason for the grudge, but she didn't care. All she knew now was that Sylux had been making threats against the Galactic Federation and now there had been at least three explosions in the Capitol City on Daiban.

"I'll ask you again, Sylux," Samus said, opening the super missile launcher at the end of her cannon to show she had been holding back in their brief sparring match. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

The faceless bounty hunter just laughed, relaxing xir stance for a moment. Samus could feel xem looking her up and down as they remained still for a moment.

"I planted four bombs in this city," Sylux said after a moment. "I've already detonated three of them, and you can be certain that I chose prime locations…"

"And the fourth?" Samus spat, her patience growing thin.

A sound like inhuman laughter came form Sylux's form, and Samus found the sound almost unnerving. "The fourth doesn't have to explode," xe said slowly. "That's your choice. It's already set for detonation, of course, but I'll give you a head start."

"Where the hell is it?" Samus was yelling, her voice booming through the synthesizer. She could feel her rage building up inside of her, and it was taking everything she had from tearing Sylux to pieces where xe stood.

"Temper, temper, Samus," xe said in a mocking scold. "A mammalian creature like yourself will end up having a heart attack one of these days if you keep that up… As for the bomb, you have a choice before you: either engage me in battle here in an attempt to capture me or go into the Capitol Building and disarm it before it goes off."

"I've got a mind to do both," Samus said, her impulse itching toward the trigger.

"You can try," Sylux said, still using the calm and condescending tone that only served to flare Samus's anger up even worse, "but the clock is ticking, and I think you remember from our last encounter that any battle between the two of us will not be a quick and easy task…"

Samus remained frozen for a moment, her arm cannon still aimed at where Sylux's heart should have been.

"I know what you're going to choose," xe said, still in a fairly relaxed stance. "The noble and mighty Samus Aran would never let anything happen to her beloved employers. After all, what is a dog without its owner?"

Samus's teeth clenched together tight, her hair standing on end under the suit. She wanted to kill Sylux. She could feel it deep in her core, her bloodlust building into a voracious hunger as she felt the slight tremor coming back in her right hand. She wanted to fight, craved a battle to the death, but she had to keep control of her own mind, fighting against the maddening impulses just as she had when her phazon corruption had been at its peak.

Instead of engaging in any true combat, she fired a super missile in Sylux's general direction before turning and sprinting out of the building through the hole she had blasted through it earlier. Not bothering to look back to see if she had hit her mark, she fell about fifteen stories, rolling into a summersault and landing hard on the ground on one knee. But the power suit absorbed most of the impact, draining only a tiny portion of its energy shielding. Within seconds, she was up on her feet and dashing toward the Capitol Building only a few doors down.

It was pure chaos on the street, people screaming and running every which way as smoke billowed overhead from three separate locations. Samus could feel her brain starting to get fuzzy as the screams all melded together and she found herself forcing her way through a crowd, not caring who she bumped into or shoved to the side as she made a beeline straight for the location of the bomb. She knew that was where Keaton and the other members of the Federation Council were located, and she was not taking any chances.

When she finally made it through the frightened stampede, Samus found that the building itself was mostly empty, although there were still a few people inside. It was on complete lockdown, and as Samus made her way to the Chairman's Chambers, she noticed the equine secretary hiding beneath her heavy metal desk, the furniture all serving dual purposes these days in case of a Space Pirate raid.

Breaking through the door to the Chairman's office, she found herself immediately met with a series of Keaton's armored bodyguards all standing around the Chairman and pointing pulse rifles directly at Samus's chest. She couldn't get a word out edgewise before the dozen or so guards opened fire, many of the initial shots hitting their mark.

"Hold your fire!" she heard the Chairman shout as she grunted, her left hand clutching at where the shots had hit her in the chest.

They ceased their fire immediately, and Samus noted the amount of her suit's energy shielding it had knocked out, although she was surprised to find it had done less damage than she had thought it would.

Brushing it off, Samus began to search the room wildly, using both her thermal and x-ray visors as she did so.

"There's a bomb in this building," she told him, ignoring the way the guards stiffened at the comment. "I think it's probably in this room or nearby it."

"That's absurd," Keaton scoffed, although his face betrayed his worry. "How could anyone have gotten in here undetected and planted a bomb?"

"No clue," Samus muttered as her visor locked onto something with an unusual energy signature.

Looking up at the mural on the dome ceiling, she realized the strange energy signature was coming from one of the painted stars, the one representing the solar system of Daiban itself.

"Get down!" She shouted before making a jump toward the high ceiling. She had to kick off the wall halfway up, but with the help of her thrusters, she was able to swipe the small white bomb off of the painted star before returning to the ground.

Placing the bomb on the floor in front of her, Samus backed a couple of paces away and signaled with her arm for the others to do the same. A quick scan of the bomb let her know that it was derived from Federation technology, and it was emitting a strange signature similar to the erroneously-named neutrinos that Sylux's shock coil used.

She knew there couldn't be much time left before detonation and that even at its small size, the explosion would be lethal to everyone in this building, possibly excluding only Samus herself. Her own bombs would be useless against it, and she doubted plasma would do the trick.

On a whim, Samus switched to her ice beam and fired a massive charged ice spreader shot at the bomb, freezing it deep in the core of the ultra-cold ice. Everyone else had jumped when they saw the bounty hunter actually shooting at the bomb, but they stared in amazement at the results of her quick thinking. Not sparing another second, Samus switched to her wave beam and charged another shot.

The wave beam passed easily through the ice without so much as scratching it, but the instant it hit the bomb, it detonated. The room rumbled as a quake from the blast shook it, but the ultra-frozen ice contained the explosion itself, though it cracked and melted soon after the impact.

Everyone in the room just stared at where the bomb had been only seconds ago. For Keaton at least, he saw much of his long life flash before his eyes before eventually turning to look up at Samus, his eyes wide and his expression obviously stunned. It only took a minute for him to get his wits about him, however, and once he did, he looked absolutely furious with the bounty hunter.

"What the hell were you thinking, Aran?" he demanded, ignoring his own bodyguards and walking straight up to the bounty hunter. He barely came up to her waist, but he stood only inches from her as glared up at her and shouted. "You had no idea if that would work or not! You could have gotten everyone in this building killed! Have you never heard of calling in a bomb squad? What is wrong with you?"

Ignoring his fury, the bounty hunter just grunted and took a step back. The tremor in her right hand was getting worse, and the edges of her vision were starting to take on a hazy blue quality.

"I saved your fucking life," she snapped, knowing she shouldn't have spoken to the Chairman like that. Taking a breath she tried to calm herself down, but her mind was racing, a craving for violence filling her senses in a way she hadn't felt since the last time she had been in hypermode. "I saved your life… there wasn't any time to wait for the bomb squad."

She could feel her heart racing, and her HUD flashed warnings at her that both her heart rate and blood pressure were rising into dangerous territory.

"If you'll excuse me," she said, trying to make her way toward the door.

But three of the armored guards got in her way and stopped her.

"You get back over here, Aran," Keaton demanded, "and you tell me how you knew about the bomb and what to do with it!"

Samus just ignored him, however, shoving through the bodyguards and forcing her way out the big double doors. She made a break for it, running as fast as she could out of the Capitol Building and only flinching slightly as a couple of pulse rifle shots hit her in the back.

But it didn't matter. She didn't get far on the street before she was completely mobbed by people and reporters. Too many of them tried to get in her face, shoving cameras at her and berating her with questions, and she could feel herself freaking out at the sudden onslaught of people in her way as the leftover impulses from her phazon corruption urged her toward violence.

Trying to cause as little damage as she could, she shoved past a couple of them before throwing herself on the ground and switching into her morphball form. She used its boost capabilities to get away, rolling between the legs of some of the larger species until she made her way down most of the street and unmorphed for a moment, just long enough to pull a sewer grate off before turning back into a ball and rolling down into the sewers of Daiban.

From there it was a clean shot to use her boost ball function to get as far away as she could from people as quickly as possible. She didn't stop for miles, just going and going, fueled by her own anger mingled with the phazon-rage she couldn't quite shake. She only stopped when she made it to some sort of reservoir, somewhere the water apparently flowed to before it was cleaned for recycling, and only then did she get out of her morphball form and kneel down in the shallowest section of the water.

Removing her helmet, she dry heaved a few times as the remnants of phazon sickness overtook her, but she didn't throw up this time. She hadn't consumed anything since the last time she had been sick, nothing other than most of a bottle of whiskey at any rate.

As she composed herself and sat up, she looked upward and closed her eyes, trying to center herself now that she could feel her body and vitals returning to normal.

This wasn't good, she decided. This was not how she was supposed to be a month out from her phazon corruption, not that there were any precedents regarding her condition. At any rate, she had nearly lost it back there both in the Chairman's Chambers and in the crowd of people on the street. She tried to focus on her breathing, taking deep breaths in, holding them, and letting them out slowly.

She was too dangerous to be around people like that. She wondered if Sylux knew that and had brought her back here intentionally, in the hope that she would have lost control and slaughtered a bunch of civilians. Xe had obviously known she would choose to go to try and disarm the bomb rather than stay and engage xem in battle.

Samus listened to the rushing sewer waters, trying not to think about what they contained as she sat and tried to meditate. There were a few techniques for grounding herself she had learned when she had lived with the Chozo, but those memories were getting more and more distant with each passing year.

Even once her heart rate returned to normal, she didn't want to get up, but she made herself do it anyway. She hoped that the fake Samus she had hired had survived the attacks and Keaton had managed to get him into some cheesy interview and spin some kind of heroic story. She didn't know how keen the little green alien would be about her after the exit she had made and the way his guards had shot at her, but she knew on some level he acknowledged that she had saved his life. And whoever had shot her in the back would likely be reprimanded or even face charges given that no one had been authorized to shoot at her and she clearly had no hostile intent toward the Chairman.

Still, she dreaded going back to the surface, lest anyone recognize her and get into her face again. She only walked for a little while in her powersuit before finding a ladder out of the sewer system and dematerializing the suit. No one would suspect a woman in jeans and a shirt that was little more than a sports bra of secretly being Samus Aran. She had learned that enough times, and she reflected on it as she climbed up the ladder and shoved the manhole cover out of her way.

She didn't recognize the street she climbed out onto, and she got some very strange looks from some of the passers-by as she crawled out of the sewer, but she didn't care. The only thing that interested her was finding somewhere to stay for the night and finish getting her head screwed on straight. She could figure out how to get to her ships over on Aliehs III in the morning.


	3. Ch 3: Monsters

**Author's Note:** Thanks to everyone who has been reading. I know it's early on, but I hope you like the story so far or are at least intrigued. Comments are super appreciated and do give me the opportunity to sort of gage where people are at and how the chapters come across.

 **Chapter 3: Monsters**

Samus didn't sleep that night, not that she slept much in general. In addition to the perpetual jetlag that came from planet hopping, she found herself physically incapable of sleeping in strange places. Even on her ship, she spent most nights in her power suit, reclining in the pilot's seat, always ready for battle even as she slept.

On the night following Sylux's escape, she had checked herself into a motel room on Daiban. Not to sleep so much as to just get away from crowds for a moment to reflect on what had transpired earlier that day.

Twice over the course of twelve hours, she had gone into what she had come to conceptualize as acute flare-ups of her phazon withdrawals. First on her ship and then in the sewer. In the Federation medical facility she had been forced to stay in for a month, the acute symptoms hadn't shown up with that kind of frequency. She hoped it was only the change in environment that had them flaring up again and that they would resolve themselves over time. She had thought the bloodlust spells would have disappeared once she could no longer enter hyper-mode, but apparently she had been gravely mistaken.

And that was only what was going on in her body. Elsewhere in the galaxy, she knew the war against the Space Pirates was still raging on. Now the Federation was down three of its best bounty hunters, and Samus had been out of commission for a month. Two months if she counted the coma she had been in after Dark Samus had infected her with Phazon in the first place, although fortunately the two months had not been consecutive.

And now there was Sylux to deal with, a mysterious entity she still knew next to nothing about. She didn't even know if Sylux was somehow connected to the Space Pirates, let alone how xe had obtained armor based in Federation military technology and why xe hated the Federation so much.

When she had first started receiving the mysterious transmissions a few months back, she had honestly thought they were coming from the entity the Federation had unfortunately dubbed "Dark Samus". And at the beginning, they had been little more than vague threats. After she finally killed Dark Samus and blew up Phaaze, the transmissions had stopped completely. Until yesterday.

Samus lay on top of the queen-sized motel bed in the crappy run-down room with its outdated faux-wood paneling. There was a decent-sized holoscreen, but she didn't bother watching anything as she stared up at the water-stained ceiling, lost in her thoughts. Her hair was wet, and all she had on was her red-orange sports bra-like top and her underwear, having abandoned her jeans in favor of a modicum of comfort.

As soon as she had checked into the room, the first thing she had done was take a long, hot shower, trying to get the stench of the sewer out of her hair and off of her skin. Thankfully, the power suit had protected her clothes, but she had taken off her helmet when she had been dry-heaving. After cleaning herself all up, she had thrown her top and underwear back on and flopped on the bed to think for a while. Sylux must not have wanted to contact her again, because her watch never beeped to alert her of any incoming transmissions, and she couldn't help but wonder what xe was doing or how far out into space xe was by this point.

The night passed more quickly than Samus had thought it would, and as the first rays of Daiban's sun came through her window, she figured she might as well get on with her day. Without so much as a second thought, Samus sat up and swung her legs over the side of her bed. She got up and retrieved her discarded pants, putting them on before running a brush through her mostly-dry hair and putting it up in a high ponytail.

At this hour, most places on the planet wouldn't be open, but she had passed a 28-hour diner not far from here when she made her way over to the motel. Wherever she was, it was not a neighborhood on Daiban that she had ever seen before. To her surprise, it seemed to be an almost exclusively human area with shops and amenities catering specifically to human needs. The appearance of the motel itself and its all-human staff led her to believe they didn't have any beds available that had been built to fit any of the other species of various sizes.

Since she had only come into the motel with the clothes on her back, Samus just walked out her door without a second thought as she strode through the parking and docking lot. There was a slight bite to the cool morning air, and she could see her own breath clearly. The bounty hunter supposed anyone who saw her walking along in her pants and glorified sports bra might guess that she was a little less than fully human, and she had a feeling folks in this area might not take kindly to knowing there was a semi-human hybrid in their midst.

It didn't take her long to get to the diner, and once she walked in, she took a seat on one of the red stools that ran along a long counter spanning the length of the room. She waved her hand over a small hologram across the counter, and it pulled up a holoscreen containing a full menu. She noted with some disdain that all of the meals appeared to be designed for human consumption. More specifically, they were meals she could tell had originated on Earth, the humans' original home-planet.

Samus had never been to Earth, nor did she have any plans to ever visit. It was one of the most heavily guarded planets in Federation territory and had a nasty reputation for being extremely hostile toward any species who didn't originate there. Even if Samus had decided to take a trip to Earth, she would have to get a special visa. Since she wasn't purely human, they wouldn't give her full rights and privileges to the planet, and since any record of her birth on the K-2L colony was destroyed in the massacre, she had no proof that she was actually entitled not only to visit the planet, but also to gain full citizenship should she ever desire it. But Samus Aran had no desire to set foot on Earth.

Finally settling on something she wanted, Samus keyed her order into the holoscreen. Five fried eggs and an appropriate amount of bacon. On a whim, she also ordered a bunch of those fried potatoes and a full pot of coffee. She could already tell it was going to be a long day, and she hadn't been properly caffeinated in weeks.

In theory, Samus was supposed to consume close to three thousand calories a day just to maintain her weight, but she had a terrible habit of skipping out on meals, often for days at a time. Standing at the height of six-foot three, Samus was an intimidating person. She was nearly two hundred ten pounds of solid muscle, and her exposed arms and abdomen showed off that fact along with the myriad scars she had obtained in battle over the years. Samus had never been sure how much of her size was genetic and how much was from the countless enhancements the Chozo had given her when she had been in their care for eleven years as a child. It had been a surprise to her when she had discovered how rare it was to find human females of her stature.

While she had been in the Federation's medical facility for the past month, she had kept up a strict diet and exercise regimen. While she had always been an imposing figure, she was currently at the largest and strongest she had ever been in her life, and she was determined to keep that up. It had been three years since her first mission to Zebes, and since then, her life had been one mercenary assignment after another as she had taken point in the Phazon Crisis and fought against the Space Pirates on top of that. She couldn't afford to let herself slack off at all, although she could see how the constant fighting could easily wear her down. The past three years had been hell on her physically and mentally, and she wondered how much longer she'd be able to keep it up.

The faint sound of a low-volume television caught her attention as she looked up to see a purple humanoid woman interviewing the fake Samus she had hired a couple of days before. She watched in semi-amusement for a moment, but then she saw the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen. Fifty people had died in yesterday's terrorist attack on Daiban. Fifty deaths she could have prevented. But elsewhere in the galaxy, there was a battle between a battalion of Galactic Federation Army troops and a horde of Space Pirates. That one had over two hundred casualties.

Even as her meal came out and Samus looked at the plates full of bacon and eggs, her stomach felt sick. She took the pot of coffee and poured some into her empty mug before putting it up to her lips and downing the mug of black coffee in one gulp.

Had she really been enough of an asshole to ride out on her space ship and get drunk when she should have been on Daiban to protect them? Or when she could have been fighting side by side with the Army battalion and possibly saving lives? She knew she couldn't have been in both places at once and that she had ultimately saved the Chairman, but it was still a lot. Too much. Part of her felt responsible, especially since she had killed the other three strongest bounty hunters on the Federation's payroll.

"Rough day?" a male voice asked, and Samus glanced over to see a middle aged white human man sitting beside her. He was dressed in a plain black tee shirt and an old pair of blue jeans, and his graying brown hair was starting to thin out in the back.

"Day's barely started," she replied, looking back down at the breakfast she was now reluctant to eat. "More like a rough month."

He nodded. "Fucking Pirates were bad enough. Now they're saying whatever struck Daiban yesterday wasn't a Pirate."

Samus looked over to him, noting his heavyset but muscular build and the five o'clock shadow on his face that suggested he had also been up the night before and had only recently finished his workday.

"Hopefully this war is over soon," she muttered half-heartedly, knowing it would be years before it ended. If it ever did. She took a few bites of the fried potatoes.

The human man looked her up and down. "You seem like you've done your part in the war effort. Marine?"

Samus shook her head. "Army. Former."

"Recent?"

"Ten years ago."

The man raised an eyebrow. "You don't look ten years retired."

"Then what do I look like?"

"Like you've been taking contracts."

Samus shrugged. "A person's gotta eat."

"True that." The man took a sip of his own black coffee. "I was in twenty-five years ago back when the raids started. Served fifteen years before taking some shrapnel to the knee. Ended my career."

Samus poked her food with her fork and forced down a few more bites. "I just didn't work well with others. Only served two years."

He looked at her again, his eyes grazing over her scars. "Either you had a rough two years, or you've taken a lot of contracts."

Samus just smirked and sipped her second mug of coffee. "Why not both?"

"Fair enough." He glanced up at the actor playing Samus on the television and took a look sip of his own coffee. "No fucking way that guy is Samus Aran."

That caught her attention as she looked over to the human man. "Oh?"

"Pretty boy like that's never seen war a day in his life. Besides, no way Samus Aran is a human. Probably at least a dozen different beings that go by that handle and they want us to think it's just one."

Samus raised an eyebrow. She had heard a few theories people had about her identity over the years, and this wasn't the first time someone had accused her of being multiple people.

"Why pretend to be a human then?" she asked, more curious about the response than anything. Her initial tension was easing up, and it was getting easier to eat without forcing herself.

"Give a good face to the brand. Act like they're one of us and rally up other people to join in the war effort. People find it damn inspirational to think one man could accomplish what that bounty hunter did."

"But you think there's no way he's one man?"

He shook his head. "They're clearly too unfamiliar with human culture to actually be human. Can't even call themselves something believable. They're claiming to be a guy, but Samus is a woman's name."

Samus nearly choked on a piece of bacon as he said that last part. She had completely forgotten she had a distinctly female name when she had hired the actor. It made sense though, given how out of touch she was with human culture, and the man next to her had called it out easily while she and Chairman Keaton had completely overlooked such a simple fact.

Samus had never understood why humans put so much emphasis on their species' sexual dimorphism, especially to the point where it resulted in color-coding infants and giving them different sets of names based on reproductive structure. The whole concept seemed silly to her, but then again, she had been raised by the Chozo, and the last female Chozo had died centuries before she was born.

"Maybe Samus isn't human," she admitted, trying to play it off like she had no emotional investment in the topic. "All I know is, whoever they are, they're pretty damn powerful."

The man just nodded. "No way in hell Samus Aran is human, and if he is just one guy, he's a mutt at best."

Samus dropped her fork, and her blood ran cold as she replayed the sentence several times in her head to make sure she had heard it correctly. "Semi-humans. They're called semi-humans."

He looked surprised as he glanced over to her. Her posture was hunched and rigid, like a coiled snake, as she leaned over her meal.

"Sorry," he backtracked, surprised by her sudden change in demeanor. " I didn't mean to offend you. You seem human, and I didn't take you for a monster fucker."

Samus stood straight up and slammed her hands down on the counter, rattling the plates of everyone sitting at it as the diner went dead silent and all eyes turned to her. She stood over the counter, her eyes intently down cast as she avoided looking at anyone.

"How," she muttered, her voice deep as she could feel the rage boiling up inside her, "can you in one breath talk about a semi-human saving the Federation and then in the next one refer to non-humans as monsters? How the fuck did you serve the Federation for fifteen years and not realize it was made up of way more beings than just humans?"

She could feel her heart rate elevating and her breath quickening, but she kept her eyes cast down to focus on the counter. Because she knew if she looked over to the man, she wouldn't be able to hold herself back.

"And for your information," she said, standing straight up and bringing her leg up and slamming her foot down on the metal stool so hard the steel bent and snapped in half like a twig as it collapsed, "I'm not a monster fucker." She finally looked up and glared at him as people gasped at how easily she had crushed and destroyed the stool. "I'm one of the fucking monsters!"

At this point, she could see several other human men standing up and looking at her. She caught sight of the young man behind the counter in her peripheral vision and realized he was pointing a handgun at her.

"Leave," he said in a calm and even tone as he stared her down.

Samus had no intention of sticking around, but she also didn't respond particularly well to having firearms pointed at her chest. Within seconds, she swiped the gun from the waiter's hands, moving so quickly he didn't realize what was happening until she was holding his gun and pointing it back at him. In stunned silence, he put his hands up and took a step back.

With a grunt, Samus lowered the weapon and snapped it in half before letting the pieces fall to the floor. She reached into her pocket and pulled a wad of paper credits out of a wallet and threw them on the counter.

"Keep the change," she muttered as she turned and stormed out of the diner and out onto the street. It was still cold enough that she could see her breath, but she took no mind of that as she strode as far away as she needed to before slowing down and taking a moment to process what had just happened.

She was easily several blocks away by this point, but she was still in the creepy all-human neighborhood judging by the size of the houses and the few people who were out on the street this early in the morning. She found a small park made of artificial turf and sat down on a bench made of fake wood.

As she sat, she pulled the wallet from her pocket and opened it to see the face of the man from the diner staring back at her on his ID. Pickpocketing was one of her lesser known skills, but she hadn't had any cash on her when she had gone into the diner and didn't feel like sticking around long enough to pay with any other means.

She grabbed the few remaining bills from the wallet before tossing it into a nearby trashcan. She was still angry, but she could feel herself calming down now that she was farther away. Looking over to her right hand, she noticed it was perfectly steady, no sign of a tremor. So the rage she had experienced back in the diner wasn't the result of Phazon withdrawal. It was just her.

That was a sobering thought. Back when she had been in the Army, she had beaten up a fellow Private for calling her a mutt. At least this time she had managed to restrict her violent tendencies to inanimate objects. Still, it just furthered her realization that it was getting more and more difficult again to go into public places. For a few years she had been getting better about it, but ever since her career had taken off after Zebes, she hadn't had any real down time.

Every day was the same, except for when she was on missions. Wake up. Eat. Work out. Hunt. And sometimes days weren't so much days as they were weeks. At this point, she legitimately couldn't remember the last time she had actually sat down to eat in a restaurant.

Suddenly her watch began to vibrate, so she pulled an earpiece from her pocket and put it on as she tapped the watch face.

"Yeah?" she answered, not sure who was calling her from a restricted number.

"Aran," the voice of Chairman Keaton called from the other end of the line, "can you be alone for five minutes without committing felonies?"

"Take it you heard what happened in the diner," she said, her face and tone deadpan.

"This morning you pulled a gun on a waiter. Yesterday you pulled that stunt with the bomb and then your disappearing act. Did the Phazon fry your brain?" He sounded every bit as irritated as she felt, and when she didn't say anything, he continued. "Regardless, for as much of a disaster as you are, you're the only decent mercenary on our payroll at the moment, and I need you to come in and give your account of what happened with the terrorist yesterday and how you knew there was a bomb in my office when no one on the security team did."

Samus frowned. "I'm not too far off from the Capitol City at the moment. I can head back down there and give you my report. Don't feel like giving out that information on an unsecured line."

Silence. She could practically hear the wrinkly alien frowning at her before he spoke. "Why the hell isn't your line secure?"

"Because properly secured lines are expensive, and my payment for that last mission still hasn't cleared my account."

Keaton grunted. "I'll make sure that gets expedited. But for now, you come down here and we'll do this face to face. Wear your armor or don't. I don't care. But Fleet Admiral Dane is going to be sitting in on this briefing so I'm giving you the heads up."

Samus perked up slightly at the mention of Admiral Dane. She had worked with him and his troops on her last mission, and he was one of the few people in the Federation military she actually respected. He seemed like a decent man, stern but respectful. And he had been fighting against the Space Pirates since she was still a child.

"I'll be there in a few," she said and disconnected the call.

Taking the earpiece out and stowing it back in her pocket, she leaned back on the bench and took a deep breath. She could taste the smog and pollution in the Daiban air, but that was pretty typical for such a densely populated planet.

Eventually she stood up and stretched, turning to make her way toward the Capitol City and give her report.


	4. Ch 4: The Meeting

**Author's Note:** Hi everyone. Once again, thanks for reading. I'm pretty pleased to present you with a second chapter in the span of a week.

For anyone wondering, yes, I'm still planning to continue with "Dreams Unwind," but I seem to have a bit more momentum for this project at the moment.

At any rate, enjoy Chapter 4, and as also, reviews are greatly appreciated :)

 **Chapter 4: The Meeting**

"You know, you really should put on a shirt before going in to see the Chairman." The equine secretary looked across her desk at Samus as the bounty hunter sat in one of the yellow faux leather chairs in the waiting area outside of Keaton's office.

Samus looked down at her outfit, still in her same attire of blue jeans, combat boots, and the bright orange crop top. Then she looked back up at the secretary.

"I am wearing a shirt," she said flatly, noting how the equine woman's suit blazer matched her magenta hair perfectly.

"That's a sports bra," the secretary said, looking unamused as she stared at Samus over the rim of her glasses.

"It covers everything required by law." The bounty hunter returned the annoyed look. "It's not public indecency."

The secretary just shook her head and sighed as she looked back down at the holoscreen on her desk. "It may not be illegal, but it's not respectful. You're going into a meeting with the Chairman of the Galactic Federation, and you're half naked."

Samus didn't say anything. She supposed it did show off an awful lot of her abdomen, and her arms were completely bare. She probably should have realized it wasn't appropriate attire for this kind of meeting, but when she had run off her ship the day before in pursuit of Sylux, she hadn't considered she'd end up in a situation where her outfit was socially unsuitable. As it was, the only reason she wasn't in her armor now was because she didn't know what the fake Samus was up to, and she didn't want anyone to notice them in two places at the same time.

"Do you… have an extra shirt?" Samus asked, feeling kind of naked and embarrassed now as she looked around and saw all sorts of people walking by dressed in various types of suits.

The secretary stopped her typing and looked up at her. She was quiet for a moment, and she looked Samus over as if trying to figure out if the woman was serious or not.

"I have an extra sweater," she said after a while, "but I'm not sure it would fit you."

Even though her bottom half resembled that of a horse, her top half was very much that of a human female, and she was far more petite than Samus in that area.

The bounty hunter just nodded. She had known it was a long shot, but she figured she might as well make an attempt at looking appropriate. Given that she had mangled every interaction she had since being discharged from the medical facility though, she figured being nearly shirtless in the Capitol Building was pretty par for the course. She crossed her legs and arms, awkwardly trying to hide her bare midsection as she waited for the Chairman to call her in.

It seemed to take forever, and Samus wondered who Keaton was meeting with before her and if Admiral Dane was in with him already. She was at least eager to see Dane again, although it would be the first time he was meeting her without her armor. Once again she wished she had thought to buy a jacket somewhere on her way in.

The equine secretary got an alert on one of her holoscreens.

"Ms. Weaver," she said, looking up at Samus, "The Chairman will see you now."

Samus just nodded as she stood up. She used a lot of aliases, especially on Federation planets, so the secretary only knew her as the socially problematic Ms. Weaver who showed up from time to time for odd meetings with the Chairman.

As Samus opened the door to the Chairman's chambers, she saw Keaton sitting behind his desk as usual, but she also saw two other human men sitting across from him. The first one she recognized immediately as Admiral Dane, a very tall man in his mid fifties. Formal as always, the Admiral had a very dignified posture, and he was dressed in his decorated olive green Marine uniform.

Samus didn't recognize the second man, someone dressed in an Army General's blue and white coat. He was fairly pale from spending so much time in space, and his hair was completely gray. He looked roughly as old as Dane if not a bit older. His face was very angular in nature, with a prominent nose and cheekbones. As he stood up from his seat, he turned to look at Samus and stared at her in dismay.

"You didn't tell me your next meeting was with a mercenary," he said to Keaton, still looking Samus up and down.

"Need I remind you, General Roberts," Keaton said as he glared at the gray-haired man, "that who I meet with is my business and not yours. And if it wasn't for your branch's piss-poor attempts at taking Zebes costing us the lives of thousands of troops, we wouldn't have to deal with private military contractors in the first place."

General Roberts made a huffing sound but held his tongue. His eyes didn't leave Samus though until he finally strode over to the exit and walked out the door, closing it with a bit more of a dramatic flare than the Chairman preferred. When at last he was gone, Keaton gestured for Samus to sit in the chair recently occupied by the General.

"Have a seat," the green alien said, completely unfazed by her inappropriate attire as she sat down. Samus wondered if he didn't care because he wasn't humanoid or if he was just used to her by now.

"Good morning, Samus," Admiral Dane said as she took a seat next to him. He didn't quite smile, but he gave her a friendly nod. "I'm glad to see you out and about again."

Samus returned the nod. "It's good to _be_ out and about again. A month in the medical facility was far too long."

"You're looking well," he said, "and I really mean it when I say I'm glad to see you again. I honestly thought we had lost you at the end of that last mission."

Samus just nodded again. She wasn't sure how to respond to that. She knew Dane had lost a significant percentage of his troops during the final battle to take down Phaaze, and she couldn't imagine what that must have felt like for him.

"If we've gotten all of our pleasantries out of the way," Keaton said, looking between Samus and Dane, "we can proceed with the actual meeting." He still sounded annoyed, although his tone was softer than it had been. "As I already briefed you and General Roberts on, Samus here saved my life yesterday when the terrorist attacked Daiban. Unfortunately, we were not able to apprehend whoever the attacker was. Unless," he continued, turning to Samus, "you managed to track down this unknown entity?"

Samus shook her head. "No. But I do know who it. The terrorist yesterday was that bounty hunter known as Sylux, the one I lost track of after the Alimbic incident a year or so ago."

Keaton nodded. "I remember. The one you claim wielded Federation technology based weaponry, but about whom you knew nothing."

"That is correct," Samus said, sitting up a bit straighter. Her self-consciousness from earlier was vanishing as the other two in the room listened to her. "Still no species data. No discernable sex. Still using the shock coil weapon though. I don't know exactly what xir motivation is, but xe still seems to hate the Federation and almost seems to take delight in toying with me."

"Toying?" Keaton asked, staring curiously at the bounty hunter. "With you?"

Samus nodded. "Xe's been sending me anonymous transmissions for months, but they were very vague, and for a long time I honestly thought they were coming from Dark Samus. They stopped for the month I was in the medical facility, but I received one yesterday just before the attack. Sylux sort of tipped me off, although I don't think xe was expecting me to find xem so quickly. We battled for a little while in one of the buildings nearby—don't remember which one—but xe told me about the bomb that was in the Capitol Building and how it was set to a timer. I didn't have time to fight xem and rescue you, so I just chose to rescue you instead."

"And why didn't you explain this before?" Keaton asked, not irritated so much as genuinely trying to understand.

"Because I was being shot at," Samus stated flatly.

The Chairman just nodded. "Fair enough. I want you to know though, those shots when you were leaving weren't authorized. The soldiers who fired them are facing the penalties for their actions." He paused. "I saw they hit their mark. I hope you weren't injured too badly."

Samus shrugged. "Honestly, it was pulse rifle fire. I'm not hurt at all."

There had been a bit of minor bruising on her chest and back when she had checked herself prior to her shower the night before, but it had likely disappeared by now. Bruises and things like that never lasted long for Samus. Even serious injuries healed far faster for her than a normal human. Despite what the copious amount of scars on her body may have suggested, it actually took quite a lot to hurt Samus Aran.

"Can you be more specific on the type of weaponry Sylux was using?" Keaton asked.

Samus shook her head. "Same cobalt blue armor. Same shock coil. Still everything from my original report from the Alimbic cluster. From everything I could tell, the bombs xe used were pretty generic, not specific to any unusual type of weaponry. Overall, nothing new. No new leads."

Admiral Dane looked thoughtful as he listened to Samus. "Whoever xe is, xe obviously has some personal vendetta against the Federation, and the fact that xe's using armor and weaponry made with our technology should theoretically make xem easier to identify." He looked over to Keaton.

The little green alien shook his head. "I'll get Intelligence to revisit the files on Sylux from the Alimbic incident, but they have so much on their plate right now, I doubt it will be a priority, especially with no new information. The war already has all of our resources stretched pretty thin. We absolutely did not need a lone wolf bounty hunter making terror attacks, especially not when most of our own solo operatives are dead or out of commission."

Samus nodded soberly. She knew he was referring to the deaths of Rundas, Ghor, and Gandrayda as well as her own extended stay in the medical facility.

"Well, for what it's worth," she said, "I'm not out of commission anymore."

Keaton looked over to her, and Samus noticed just how tired the alien looked. "But you realize this means you need to do the job of four people now. Three out of our four best hunters are dead, and each one of them rivaled you in strength. I'm not going to lie to you, Samus. Unless we can enlist someone else as powerful as you, your workload has just quadrupled."

"The other three may be gone," Admiral Dane said, striking an optimistic tone and garnering their attention, "but Samus was always the strongest out of all of them. She's a damn good warrior and a far better ally than I think the military gives her credit for."

Samus didn't say anything, the praise making her feel self-conscious again.

"While that's all well and good," Keaton said, turning from Dane to Samus, "even though you are a powerful warrior, this will very likely be more than you can handle. Even if it doesn't hit you right away, I have no doubt being the last surviving hunter of your caliber will mean far more numerous and more dangerous missions. It will wear you down, Aran."

Samus nodded slowly, not sure why he was emphasizing something so obvious.

"You're going to need to take real care of yourself," he continued. "Eating, sleeping, and working out regularly. Keeping yourself in peak form so you're fighting fit at all times." His eyes narrowed into a glare. "Not getting yourself drunk and passing out on your space ship or getting into bar brawls or whatever the hell it was you did this morning."

"It was a diner," Samus said, not realizing how irrelevant that detail was until the words were already out of her mouth. "And don't worry, I won't repeat that mistake. Sylux's random attacks yesterday were a wake-up call for me. I know I'll have to be ready at all times. I have no intention of compromising myself again."

She said the words with honest intent, but there was the small voice in the back of her mind that knew it wasn't true. She had a lot of demons, and she knew, deep down, that she had never truly had any of them under control. Especially not since the phazon corruption.

"The entire Federation is counting on you, Aran," Keaton said with an uncharacteristic sincerity. "We need you alive and on duty, so don't go getting yourself killed or worked into such a state that you're useless."

"I'm not planning on getting myself killed." Samus wasn't sure if he was being so repetitive because he thought she was stupid or if he was simply that desperate. A long look at the way his wrinkly skin and eyelids drooped, though, made her realize it was the latter. It had been twenty-five years since the war began, and it had been raging since before Keaton had ever taken office. The Chairman was exhausted, and he worried about Samus reaching that same state.

"Good," Keaton said, once more aloof as he pulled something up on a holoscreen and turned the projection toward Samus and Dane. "Now, since nothing can be done about Sylux at the moment, we might as well move on to our next point of interest." The screen zoomed in on a small planet in a far off solar system that Samus had never seen before. "This is Actaeon. It was considered a possible site for a Centurian colony until the raids of 2204 when the idea was abandoned. Intelligence has discovered that since the fall of Phaaze there has been an increased amount of traffic to and from the planet, but none of the energy signatures match any Federation-registered ships. We believe it to be a Space Pirate base, possibly one where the higher-ups in their ranks have gone to recuperate since Aran took out so many of their other bases and officers."

Samus studied the image of the planet carefully. It looked so small and insignificant compared to the vast space around it, but she knew she couldn't judge a planet by looks or size. If this really was where the higher-ranking Space Pirates were gathering, there was a good chance she was number one on their hit list.

She recalled her recent battles with Ridley, the Commander of large factions of the Space Pirates. She had faced him in battle twice in that mission alone, and one of those fights had nearly killed her. It was only Rundas, the Phrygisian bounty hunter, who had saved her from certain death. And then she had failed to return the favor when she encountered him a month later, severely corrupted by the phazon. She could still see the image of him impaled on his own icicle as she had watched helplessly. It was an image that would be forever burned in her mind along with the sounds of Dark Samus's cackling.

"What we need from you," Keaton continued, addressing Samus directly, "is to accompany Admiral Dane's fleet in an offensive raid on the planet. The Admiral said you did a good job covering his troops in the bomb squad last month, and I think it would be helpful to them to have you assist."

Samus frowned as she stared at the holographic planet. "Why put the fleet in danger at all? I've always worked alone, and I took down their operations on Zebes three years ago. I doubt whatever base is on this planet is anywhere near as organized or fortified as the one on Zebes was. I can go in by myself."

"I thought you would say that." Keaton shook his head. "What did I just get done telling you though? You're going to be run ragged in the months—or even years—to come. Take the backup. Work with Dane's fleet. This isn't a matter of whether or not you can take down this base by yourself, Aran. It's a matter of allocating your strength for optimal efficiency."

The mercenary looked away from the holoscreen and glared at the Chairman. "Then you're condemning many of Dane's troops to death."

"And if you insist on continuing with your regularly-scheduled recklessness, then you're condemning many more people to die. Billions. And possibly costing us the war." The Chairman glared back at her every bit as fiercely. "Maybe you understand the individual battles, and I'll give you that you've been instrumental in many of our victories these past three years, but you don't understand the war as a whole. Our forces are holding on by threads, and after twenty-five years of constant raids and attacks, we're spent. We're depending on private military contractors like you to fight our toughest battles because we just don't have the power to keep up anymore. The Pirates outclass us in technology even if we outnumber them. And they have powerful bioweapons that are forbidden by our laws."

"And you only have one bioweapon," Samus said as she stared at the green alien. Her face was blank and empty "And you need to preserve that weapon."

"Precisely," Keaton said, not taking mind of Samus's flat tone.

Samus looked up at Admiral Dane, and he nodded to her silently.

"I guess I don't have much of a choice," she said.

"The troops will be glad to have you fighting on our side, Samus," Dane said with a small smile at the bounty hunter.

Samus had a million things she wanted to say in an attempt to talk the Admiral out of sending his people into the raid, but she knew it was no good. "I'm happy to help," she said after a while. "But I do have one condition."

Dane nodded again. "Anything you'd like, Samus."

"I need you to take me to the shipyards as Aliehs-III. You know my ship was damaged and subsequently destroyed by the explosion of Phaaze." Both Admiral Dane and likely Keaton knew very well that Samus's reports of her ship's destruction had been false, but they pretended they didn't. "I need to get my other ship, and I'll accompany you in that."

"You're welcome to join us on one of our ships," the Admiral replied.

But Samus shook her head. "I don't do well living with people in close quarters like that. Besides, my ship is a much smaller target. If I'm really as important to the war effort as Keaton is making me out to be, then it's best to minimize my chances of being shot down."

"That seems like sound logic and a reasonable request," Dane said.

Keaton nodded, but he looked skeptical as he looked Samus up and down. "Yes, solid plan. As long as you're not imprudent enough to try anything stupid, Aran."


	5. Ch 5: Acteaon

**Author's Note:** I apologize for my extended absence. The holidays were crazy, and I spent a ridiculous amount of time working on a cosplay and playing Smash Ultimate and Let's Go Eevee. I swear I'm usually much better with my update schedule.

At any rate, here's chapter 5 of Ghosts. And now that I'm back in the swing of things, I should be able to get chapter 6 out much faster than this one.

I really do appreciate feedback and knowing people are interested in this story, so please do leave a comment if you can. It would make me so happy and does do wonders for motivating myself to write.

Thank you! And enjoy!

 **Chapter 5: Acteaon**

Samus could feel herself dozing off as she sat in the cockpit of her ship, but a sudden surge of adrenaline forced her awake. She bolted upright in her pilot's seat, her heart rate increasing as she found herself painfully alert and back on guard. Glancing over to her clock, she noted that there was still another eighteen hours before she and Dane's troops were scheduled to begin the siege of Actaeon

It had been two days since she had gotten the mission instructions from Keaton, and she hadn't found herself able to sleep at all during that time, save for a few moments she would drift off only to be awoken by her heart pounding and her whole body practically trembling with adrenaline. Even in her power suit, reclining in her pilot's chair, she couldn't relax at all. Her mind was racing too quickly.

There were Space Pirates on Actaeon, possibly some of their highest-ranking officers and elites. Possibly even Ridley himself if he had managed to survive. And no matter how much Keaton insisted having back-up on this mission would be good for Samus, she knew that if she let Dane's troops actually try to take the planet, a lot of them were going to end up dead.

Keaton had warned her against trying anything foolish like trying to take the planet herself, and she supposed he had been wise to say so since it showed how well he knew her. But Samus had no interest in doing the prudent thing and waiting around. The longer they delayed, the longer the Space Pirates would have to rebuild their forces and prepare for an attack. And the better prepared the Pirates were, the more of Dane's troops would die.

It was an easy call for Samus at this point. It may have been two full days since receiving the mission briefing from Keaton, but she still had eighteen hours before Dane's people would launch their attack. Depending on the shape the Pirates were in, that could be more than enough time for her to slip in and do some recognizance and possibly take out some of their top players.

A shiver went down her spine as she thought about Ridley. There was a good chance the reptilian Pirate Commander was on that planet recovering from their last fight. Samus knew she had only narrowly missed killing him, but in a lot of ways the Ridley had had fought in her last mission had not actually been the Ridley she had come to know and hate over the years.

When Samus had faced Ridley last, he had been enhanced both with mechanical components and the Pirate's version of a Phazon Enhancement Device. His eyes, never a pleasant sight for the woman who had watched him slaughter her loved ones, had not even been the eyes of the real Ridley. Like so many others, the being called "Omega Ridley" had been so overpowered by phazon that he had lost himself to it.

Samus wasn't sure which she found more disconcerting these days, Ridley or phazon. Everyone she had seen corrupted by phazon had been like a rabid animal. Completely absent from their own body as it was driven to attack relentlessly and viciously, even in the throes of deaths. It was the same condition that had corrupted her and to which she had almost lost her life.

Thinking of how close she had come to death always set Samus on edge. She knew she had hundreds of tests from the Federation hospital saying that it was completely out of her system, but there was a part of her that didn't trust their analysis. The way her temper was flaring, the acute withdrawal symptoms continuing this long, everything just being so off… there was a part of her that was still convinced that the phazon lived on in her system and that she would never truly be rid of it and be clean ever again. Even now she could see images of herself, fully corrupted by phazon, a soulless rabid animal killing everyone who came into contact with her and no longer possessing any control over her body or her actions.

And she had come so close to that. She could still feel that ravenous bloodlust, though it had lessened considerably during her stay in the hospital.

Samus ran another diagnostic scan as she took her ship out of its neutral state and fired on its engines. It would only take a quick trip through hyperspace to get to the planet Acteaon. Her powersuit already had a full supply of energy tanks, missiles, and bombs, and her ship had enough cloaking that she would most likely be able to land on the planet undetected.

The only thing that bothered her at this point was the fact that she had not slept in over four days, but that was not terribly unusual for her. It would be near impossible for a human to function in such a state of sleep deprivation, but it didn't bother Samus.

Pain, hunger, exhaustion—these were not things to which her body reacted in a normal capacity. And while sometimes being able to tough it out through the worst of physical conditions was a huge advantage, the unfortunate side effect was that she often could not tell if she was hungry, tired, or in pain. She didn't possess the same level of bodily self-awareness as other people, and it had occasionally led to her continuing to fight with injuries that would have remained very minor if she had stopped to actually take care of them. Whenever she woke up in a hospital of any kind, her lack of a self-preservation instinct was usually the reason why.

Like many things about herself, Samus didn't know why she possessed such a decreased capacity to respond to her own pain or why she could so easily drive her body to the point of collapse if she was not careful. She knew that most humans were hardwired to stop exerting themselves to their full potential all the time so their bodies could avoid injury. She suspected that this particular piece of self-preservation was something the Chozo had suppressed in her central nervous system, possibly intentionally, when they had installed the hardware in her brain so she could interface with the powersuit.

Samus's ship was just entering hyperspace as she found her mind drifting toward the Chozo again. Much like the Meroids, she had been built as their bioweapon. More specifically, she was a prototype for a mammalian version of their enhanced warriors from centuries past. And while the Chozo had once been very adept at installing that kind of hardware and making it interface with the bodies of their own species, the process was very different with a small mammal. Especially a small human toddler.

As a result, Samus knew she had some physical damage to her body and brain, even if she wasn't aware of its extent. She knew it was a large part of the reason why she often woke up disoriented and why she had never been able to access her latent telekinetic abilities the Chozo DNA would have given her. Certain areas of her brain had been quite damaged by the procedure. Supposedly there were issues with other parts of her body due to the experiment as well. One doctor had mentioned something about the stress it was putting on her heart years ago, but she had never followed up to find out if it was anything serious.

In retrospect, some of their design seemed counterproductive, but when the Chozo had engineered her, they had considered her experimental and far more expendable than the Federation currently did. Between the Metroids and Mother Brain, they had assumed their defenses would be adequate if they were ever attacked.

Ironically, their most expendable weapon was the only one that hadn't turned on them.

Reentry into regular space was a little rougher than usual following the trip in hyperspace, and Samus realized she had exited much closer to the planet than she had intended. As a result, she entered its atmosphere far too soon following her reentry.

"Damn," she muttered to herself, setting the ship's computer to scan the area as fast as she could. Normally she would try to have a landing location in mind before even getting into a planet's atmosphere. Now the most she could hope for was that the Space Pirates hadn't detected her yet.

It only took her a minute to get control of her ship and find a good enough place to land it. The spot wasn't ideal, but it would have to do. She wanted to minimize her time in the air so she couldn't be detected as easily. But she also needed to fly just long enough to slow the ship down so she wouldn't wind up with too harsh of an impact once she got to the ground.

As she touched down on the alien soil, she wished she had her other ship with her, the one she had used to invade the Pirate Homeworld and Phaaze. Its cloaking was far superior to that of her current ship, but several of its modifications were highly illegal. While she had used it while working on one mission with the Marines, she was glad all government documents showed it had been destroyed. The Federation may have been turning a blind eye to some to her actions now that she was useful to them, but she had a feeling it might come in handy at some point in the future to have a ship even they couldn't track.

She could feel her mindset shifting as she stepped onto the platform and it raised her up through the exit hatch. As she stood on top of the golden-orange ship and surveyed the land, her left hand traveled instinctively to her cannon.

Acteaon was a fairly common-looking planet, but Samus still thought there was something strangely beautiful about it. The whole landscape looked like a charcoal sketch, a monochromatic gray scale that stretched uninterrupted as far as the eye could see. Silvery sand that was fine as powder. A pitch black night sky. No visible plant or animal life. Only the soft ground that glittered in the starlight. The planet didn't even have a moon in its crystal clear sky.

It was a drastic change from the hustle and bustle of the eternally light-polluted Daiban. Here there was nothing but silence. The planet's surface was barely any different than being out in space itself. Even the silver-powdered ground was as smooth and pristine as fresh snow, not a footprint or blemish to be seen.

Samus almost hated to disrupt its perfection as her boots hit the surface and she began walking away from her ship. Even if she couldn't see anything from here, her map was pulling up energy signatures from somewhere in the distance, deep under the ground.

Running one more diagnostic of her suit to confirm everything was still in order, Samus ventured forward toward the energy signatures. It appeared the Pirates had reverted back to the methods they had used on Zebes, burrowing most of their base underground. Samus wondered vaguely how hard it would be to set off some kind of massive explosion and just bury the entirety of their operation without having to go down to its depths and deal with it herself.

Thankfully though, the scans didn't show the energy signatures penetrating nearly as deep below the surface as they had on Zebes. She suspected this was a much cruder base, one they had only thrown together after she had taken Zebes and several of the other planets they had occupied. But also somewhere they could be free of the spreading phazon plague.

After walking for a while, Samus could make out a figure in the distance, and as always, she kept her cannon raised and at the ready as she approached it. It was not a creature with an overly large frame, probably just some Pirate grunt sent up to the surface as a lookout. There were some footprints in the powdery sand at this point, and their density seemed to increase the closer she got to the lone figure.

By the time it finally noticed her, Samus was already well within firing range. It didn't even have time to call out to anyone before it was struck dead by the silent plasma beam. As it fell, Samus fired at it several more times until its body was completely disintegrated, becoming just more ashy powder to blend in with the sand.

Even though she had killed numerous enemies in this exact fashion, there was something Samus found strangely unnerving about watching the Pirate turn to ash that scattered into the wind, lost amongst the rest of the world. She watched it fly, disappearing as though it never was, and her mind flashed back to another time when she had watched it rain ash. But the sky had been a sickly orange then, and billows of black smoke had been rising all around her. People had been screaming as explosions rocked the very ground she had stood upon.

And the ash had been so thick it had gotten into her mouth and choked out her cries. And everything… everything had burned. And everyone had disappeared as though they had never even been there at all…

A shot landing squarely in the center of her back snapped Samus most of the way out of her memory, though the lines between then and the present were still blurry even as she fired missiles into the oncoming group of Space Pirates.

She was hit a few more times, but their attacks were nothing compared to the way her missiles completely obliterated the straggly-looking band of Pirates. And as the last one fell dead into the ashy sand, Samus noted that they were not protected by their usual armored exoskeletons, at least not completely. They looked as though they had rushed to the surface, barely half-prepared for battle.

Whatever they had hoped to accomplish, they wouldn't be doing it now. The only thing they had managed to do was give away as entrance to the underground base. Stepping over their charred and dismembered corpses, Samus walked in the direction from which they had come, following their footprints in the sand.

Her approach was methodical, not even curiosity peaking into her mind as she noted the metallic hatch in the ground, the one through which they had obviously come. She supposed they might have been a distraction, nothing more than a rag tag group the Pirates sacrificed to make her drop her guard and assume the place was in much worse shape than it actually was.

But as Samus used her grapple beam to tear off the metal hatch and jumped down into the dimly-lit tunnel, she realized that perhaps the half-dressed Pirate grunts had been indicative of the state of this place after all.

She walked for a while down the dank tunnel with its silvery black earthen walls. It was only illuminated by haphazardly placed energy lights that emitted a dim but harsh white glow. The only other light was the soft green glow of Samus's suit as she traversed the tunnels.

There were several other hatches in the ceiling that she suspected led up to the planet's surface but not into any structures given how flat everything had looked in all directions. There was a faint humming noise in the distance, but other than that, no signs of life. Samus began to wonder just how few Pirates were on this planet and whether this had been their makeshift base but they had abandoned it in favor of something better fortified and with more natural resources.

It wasn't until she got a hit on her HUD showing a new energy signature that she felt like she was making any progress. A three-dimensional display appeared and pinged a little spot not too far under where she was currently standing. While she couldn't tell what the HUD was trying to show her, she was certain it was something significant. And she was ready to take out whatever it was.

Switching between her scan and x-ray visors, she looked around for any sign of a hidden passage that might take her down to the next level. It wasn't long before she found another one of the metallic hatches buried below a thick layer of the blackish soil. Not even bothering to dust it off, Samus shot out her grapple beam and used it to rip the metal hatch straight out of the ground.

Jumping down to the next level, she looked around, on guard and prepared to fight whatever was coming her way. But much to her surprise, no Pirates appeared from the shadows to attack her. Instead, she just found herself inside of a massive empty room made of nothing but the same black earth as the tunnels above. Only one wall was steel-plated and contained a massive window that looked down into some kind of a lab.

Samus walked over to the window wall, but stopped dead in her tracks as soon as she realized the empty room was not nearly as empty as she had thought it was. A sickening wet cracking sound under her boot made her stop and look down at the severed Pirate limb she had apparently stepped on.

Sweeping the room with her glance, she noticed several other severed limbs, their green blood dried and disappearing into the thirsty earthen floor around them. But it wasn't just limbs she found in the room. It was all different parts of Pirate corpses, all torn to shreds and half devoured by something.

Whatever it was that had gotten here first and slaughtered all of the Pirates must have been extremely powerful, because Samus scanned remains of Elite and other extremely powerful and high ranking Pirates, just within the one room alone.

Pulling her eyes away from the carcasses and feeling her hair stand on end, Samus made her way to the window wall. She listened closely to her surroundings, now on her highest alert as her mind raced wondering what had killed everyone before she had gotten here. It occurred to her that the unprepared group of Pirates she had encountered back on the surface may not have been running out in a frenzy to attack her. They had been running away from something. And judging by how fresh the bodies at her feet were, there was a good chance that creature was still in here.

Gazing down into the lab, Samus saw several empty cylinders, the kind that stretched from floor to ceiling that she had often seen filled with Metroids and other lab-grown creatures. There was an absolutely massive operating table at the center of the room, one that was surrounded by broken mechanical equipment and bleeding half-eaten Pirate bodies. Samus could feel her heart rate increasing as she realized the restraints on the operating table were broken as well, restraints that had been designed to hold a six-limbed creature.

But she couldn't dwell on the scene in the destroyed lab very long. Shots suddenly rang out in the distance, but even as she prepared for battle, she couldn't see any of the blasts come her way. Instead, the frenzied shooting continued as a bleeding Space Pirate Officer ran out of another tunnel and into the room she occupied. And Samus realized the Pirate wasn't shooting at her, but rather at what was chasing it.

An all too familiar roar filled her ears as Samus's mind flashed back again to the day of the raining ash, and as she saw the demon himself enter the room and grab the Pirate Officer by its head, her mind superimposed the image of a human woman over its body. Its neck snapped with the same familiar crack as the draconic beast bit into it and began feeding on the Pirate's flesh.

And only once he finished his meal and discarded the remaining parts of the corpse did the golden-amber eyes of the Space Pirate Commander Ridley snap over to where Samus stood, her cannon raised and pointed at his chest. But he seemed unfazed by her presence as he laughed his horrifying inhuman laugh that she had heard so many times before. Standing tall, he showed off his fully healed and regenerated body as he stared down at Samus.

And the bounty hunter could still hear the screams of decades past from the last time she had watched him ingest someone in front of her. But this time, she raised her cannon and stared right back at him.


	6. Ch 6: The Cunning God of Death

**Chapter 6: The Cunning God of Death**

Samus stared up at the towering form of Ridley as the half-eaten Space Pirate lay bleeding out beside them. The golden-amber eyes of the dragon looked back at her, and for a moment time itself seemed to split in two. In one reality, Samus was terrified, helpless and frozen in fear in front of the beast, but in the other reality, she stood with her arm cannon pointed at his chest, a super missile locked and loaded.

Ridley seemed almost to grin as he looked down at her, his teeth still dripping with the fresh green blood as he showed off his powerful and fully healed body. Samus's mind flashed back to her second meeting with him, back when he had beaten and taunted her, explaining how he had survived the explosion on K-2L by devouring the bodies of the dead humans, including her own mother. And she realized he had applied the same principles now, killing and eating his own troops as soon as they had healed him just enough to attack them.

It was fascinating and horrifying just how much of his body had regenerated in such a short amount of time given what he had looked like after their last battle.

And this was him. Ridley. The real Ridley and not some dead-eyed phazon zombie.

Samus fired first, aiming a super missile at his face as he lunged forward. He managed to pivot out of the way at the last moment, but the ceiling of the earthen room was too low for him to fly up like he normally would. Instead, he snaked his body around, changing directions and snapping at Samus. But she was ahead of him, and rather than jumping back, she managed to sidestep his jaws and fire a super missile right into his mouth.

Ridley screamed, and Samus was about to shoot him again when the razor barb of his tail whipped out and stabbed her in the back. She took the hit, but she stayed on her feet, turning to blast his wings in a barrage of plasma beam fire.

The plasma scorched the membrane of his wings, but it didn't burn away. She switched to fire more super missiles, but before she could shoot, a rush of hot plasma hit her square in the chest. Samus tried to recover from the hit, but a clawed hand reached out and pinned her to the ground, crushing her down into the earth as another spray of plasma rained down on her from above.

Alarms blared in Samus's helmet as her energy tanks dropped rapidly. She knew she couldn't handle this for long and needed to find a way to break the dragon's hold. Raising her cannon, she blindly fired five super missiles into Ridley's face.

Three out of the five made contact, and the space dragon's screams filled the room. But as two of the missiles hit the earthen ceiling, the structure began to tremble around them. Samus ignored it as she fired missile after missile into Ridley, desperate to break the dragon's hold on her so she could get out from under his claws. But only half of her attacks hit, the rest exploding into the ceiling.

Ridley reared back, another hot burst of plasma forming in his throat as his golden amber eyes glared down at Samus. He blasted her with his fiery breath, but the attack was cut short as part of the ceiling suddenly caved in and buried him in the coal-colored dirt. Samus took the opportunity to wiggle out from under him as his arm was crushed by the falling debris.

Shooting a few more missiles at him, the bounty hunter hoped he would stay pinned beneath the dirt, but Ridley quickly broke free. His eyes turning red hot with rage, he lunged forward, completely ignoring Samus's missile fire as it struck him repeatedly in the face. Instead, he released another spray of plasma at the hunter and grabbed her while she was blinded.

Only this time as he pinned her, he learned from his past mistake. Rather than attack her head on, he pinned her cannon arm to the floor, crushing it into the ground so it was forced to point away from him. Samus tried to struggle and point it at him, but he snapped her elbow in his powerful grip.

Samus screamed, pain shooting through her arm as it broke. She couldn't feel her right hand at all as numbness set in below her elbow, and she found herself unable to shoot. Ridley made a sound like a laugh deep in his throat as he crushed her beneath him. Her alarm was blaring as the energy in her tanks rapidly dwindled. Her cannon was completely offline, its connection totally severed. She felt herself overcome with a sense of helplessness and terror she hadn't felt in many years.

Once more, Ridley laughed and opened his mouth, ready to finish her off with another rush of plasma, but something clicked in Samus's head, and she used her left arm to fire her grapple beam into his mouth. It somehow latched onto his serpentine tongue and she yanked it as hard as she could.

Ridley's deep chortling changed to wet-sounding strangle as something tore in his throat, and rather than plasma, all that came from his mouth was a cascade of blood. Samus ripped on the grapple beam one more time, and more blood spilled from the dragon's mouth as he struggled to even breath. Samus was almost able to kick herself out from under his failing grip when another chunk of earth fell from the ceiling above.

The missiles had done a number on the makeshift structure, and its integrity was severely compromised. Piece by piece, the ceiling began to rain down on the two combatants, crumbling more and more quickly around them. Samus flailed like crazy, finally managing to break free from Ridley. She knew she had to escape or she'd be buried alive once the floor above them also collapsed.

She got up and made a run for the hatch, and she jumped up almost all the way to it before she felt something grab onto her leg. With lightning speed, Ridley pulled her down from the air, snapping her body like a whip as he threw her to the ground. As the structure crumbled, the nimble space dragon escaped.

Samus tried to get to her feet, but she was crushed by more falling earth. It forced her down to the ground as the rest of the ceiling caved in. Even the walls of the level above them crashed down to where she lay, the structure collapsing all the way down from the surface, burying Samus under meters of heavy earth as Ridley took off, spreading his wings and flying out into space.

For several moments, she lay completely motionless. The blow had knocked the wind out of her and the sheer weight of the earth was crushing her beneath it. Even in her power suit she was struggling to breathe. She couldn't feel her right hand at all, but horrific pain shot through her broken arm as she watched the energy tanks on her HUD still dropping, getting ever closer to depletion. She was going die here. Immobilized in a mass grave of half-eaten Space Pirates.

But Samus wasn't ready to give up just yet. There was one thing on her mind, and it wasn't saving herself. Ridley had gotten away. He was severely wounded given that she had pulled out half of his throat, but he had escaped. And she just was not having that.

Her arm may have been broken, but her armor hadn't been breached. Using all the energy she could muster, she tucked herself into the shape of the morphball, her physical body shifting into energy as the powersuit changed shape around her. And once she was in the morphball, she dropped a powerbomb.

If any part of the structure had been left intact after the battle, it all came crashing down now as the powerbomb blasted and shook everything in the vicinity. The explosion was so great, it blasted the meters of dirt off of Samus, some of it flying up twenty or thirty feet into the air. And before the earth could rain back down, Samus shifted back into her regular form and jumped up to the surface of the planet. She was panting heavily as she landed on one knee, and it took her a moment to get back on her feet, but she was ready.

Immediately activating her thermal visor, she scanned the area around her for any sign of Ridley, but much to her dismay he was very far off the ground by the time she found him. Almost as high as a low flying plane. Even if she had her arm cannon online, she would have no way to attack him from where she was standing.

So instead of attacking, she dashed straight back to her ship. She couldn't call it with her cannon like she normally would, so she had to run the whole way. By the time she finally got to it, she practically leaped through the cabin and into the cockpit, throwing the thrusters into full force as she took off after Ridley.

It didn't take her long to catch up with the space dragon. He may have had a head start, but his wings weren't nearly as fast as her ship. And as soon as he was in her line of sight, she fired off a round of shots from the guns mounted on the underside of her ship.

Ridley, however, could maneuver a lot more easily than something like a gunship, and he evaded most of the shots easily. He swooped down low and fired his own plasma breath up at the ship's underbelly. Samus was able to negate some of the attack with the ship's thrusters, but most of the attack hit the ship's energy shielding, knocking it down a few pegs. Undeterred, Samus fired back. It was difficult flying the ship and operating the guns with only one useable arm, and it was clearly showing as she struggled to land so much as a single hit.

For a while, it was just a straight back and forth, Samus's ship and Ridley exchanging hits. Most of his attacks hit their mark, but the ship's armored hull and energy shielding prevented any real damage. It was a long time, however, before any of Samus's shots hit, but once they did, the results were devastating. One shot nearly immobilized him in the air, but the second and third shots nearly took him out, the last hit actually tearing his tail in half as the severed appendage fell to the ground below. He was weaving unevenly in the air now, barely able to balance without the use of his tail.

Samus was just getting ready to finish him off when Ridley suddenly changed tactics. Rather than try to evade the shots, he flew straight at the cannons instead, barely dodging their fire at the last minute as he latched onto the guns themselves. Samus tried desperately to turn them around so they could hit him, but the space dragon got the better of her, and Samus's heart skipped a beat when the ship's dash flashed that first one cannon had been knocked offline and then the other soon after it.

With her weapons systems completely disabled and her own arm cannon still useless, Samus was running out of options. She knew flying with Ridley into space wouldn't kill him. She had seen the dragon fly through the emptiness of space in the past. She needed some kind of an impact.

So she decided on a desperate and reckless course of action. She slammed the thrusters as hard as she could, forcing the ship downward at breakneck speed. They weren't too high in the air, so there wasn't enough time for Ridley to escape before they crash-landed into the ground. The space dragon screamed as he was crushed under the weight of Samus's ship, and she thrust it deeper and deeper into the ground, pushing into the earth itself until a deep crater formed under her. Only then did she leave the pilot's seat and head over to the gun closet. Grabbing a plasma-based flamethrower, she was ready to get off the ship and incinerate what was left of Ridley's body.

But before she could do that, her ship's dash began to beep, and a distress call came to her from the monitor by the pilot's seat. Leaving the flamethrower on the narrow bed in her gun closet, she rushed over to the cockpit to hear what the incoming message was. But all she could see on the screen was thick black smoke. There was the sound of someone yelling.

She felt her body getting cold and limp as something sunk in her chest. Between the screaming, the image of the smoke, and her own exhaustion, she was having a hard time keeping her mind in the present. She had all but forgotten about Ridley's body when a set of coordinates suddenly appeared on her dash. Taking a seat in the pilot's chair once more, she tapped the holoscreen to input the newly received coordinates. Wherever they were, that planet was under attack, and someone had used their dying moments to send her this message. She had no choice but to act.

Still shaken from the crash and the battle and running on five days without sleep, Samus felt strangely dizzy as her ship took off again, launching itself back upwards and speeding out of the planet's atmosphere before she activated the jump into hyperspace.

She didn't even know what she was doing anymore. Her body was running on autopilot, and even though the recording had ended, she could still hear the screams from the video shrieking through her mind. The ship's computer was babbling on at her listing the injuries she had sustained in the fight and subsequent building collapse, but she tuned them out. Instead she opted to just replace the energy in the suit's shielding. Her human body could wait.

It wasn't a long trip to the coordinates she had been given. Their planet of origin was surprisingly close given how out of the way Acteaon had been. Normally something that convenient would have tripped Samus's danger senses, but she was too wired and exhausted to notice. She could only focus on one thing: rescuing whoever might have been injured in the attack and killing whoever was responsible. She didn't even know if it was an attack or an accident, but her mind couldn't process what she had seen as anything but an attack.

As she got out of hyperspace and made the jump into the planet's atmosphere, it didn't take her long to spot the billowing cloud of black smoke that must have been the one in the distress video. She only hoped she was in time to help whoever was there.

Normally she would have taken the time to scope out a good place to land, but she was already cutting corners, and instead of landing, she got up on top of her ship as it flew over the heart of the billowing smoke and jumped straight into the flames.

It was too dark to see anything as she slammed into the ground, landing on one knee. It took her a moment to catch her breath. Flames surrounded her on all sides, and she knew the thermal visor would be useless in this situation so she used the x-ray visor instead in an attempt to see what she was doing.

She looked all around her, but to her surprise, she didn't see any bodies anywhere, just the burned remains of what had likely been a very large building. Not sure what to make of the situation, she walked forward scanning desperately for any sign of life or any bodies, any sign of who had sent the distress signal at all in the first place. But there was no one. Nothing.

She was hot and tired, sweat pouring down her forehead as the pain in her arm became steadily more and more unbearable. She didn't know what was going on. This was clearly some kind of an attack, but on whom? She didn't see anyone. By the time she finally made it out of the fire, visibility was a bit better and she turned off her x-ray visor, opting back to her regular combat visor.

Onward she pressed, her left hand holding up her cannon arm from underneath since her broken arm lacked the strength to raise it. She could hear screaming as she could feel the sweat running in streams down her face and body. She didn't know where the screaming was coming from or if it was even from the present. It was too familiar.

The edges of her vision started to blur, but Samus ignored it. She couldn't stop, not even as her equilibrium started to falter. Someone had called her here. She wasn't sure who it was or where they were, but someone had called her.

So it was to her complete shock when she noticed a lone figure standing in the distance. Hoping she had finally found someone to rescue, Samus ran toward the figure, but she stopped dead in her tracks as soon as she recognized who it was.

Sylux stood before her, clad in that same blue armor and illuminated by its green lights amongst the rubble and debris of what had probably been buildings that had also been bombed at some point. Even though she knew her cannon was useless, she kept it pointed at xem as xe approached her.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Sylux?" she demanded, her voice raw and hoarse.

Sylux paused and stopped not far from where she was, but xe didn't look like xe was going to attack.

"My work here is done," xe said. "I've taken out their facility."

"What?" Samus asked, more confused than anything else at the moment. She had expected to see Space Pirates ransacking the place and murdering people, not a lone wolf who was apparently finished before she got there.

"The facility," xe repeated. "It needed to be eliminated. Don't worry, Samus Aran. I made sure none of your precious humans were inside when I set off the explosives. This time I had no intention of pissing you off. I did, however, send the message and wait around for you to arrive. As I knew you would. In record time."

"What the fuck are you babbling on about, Sylux?" She only hoped xe hadn't figured out that the only reason she wasn't attacking xem was the fact that she was injured and couldn't shoot.

Sylux paused for a moment and pointed xir cobalt blade to the opening of a mine shaft. "Unfortunately, I only accounted for authorized personnel when I planned my attack and not for trespassers. My scans indicate there's someone trapped down there. I doubt the shafts are very sturdy after an explosion of that magnitude…"

Samus paused, studying Sylux for a moment. "You think I'm going to let you get away again. Run down there and save the human first while you make your escape?"

"No," Sylux replied. "I don't think so. I _know_ that's exactly what you're going to do. You're too predictable, weak to the death of your own kind like all humans are. Look how quickly you came to this place when you were supposed to be preparing to raid Acteaon with that Admiral and his troops?"

Samus was silent.

"Oh yes, I knew about that," xe said. "It's why I timed my attack the way I did. But now you best hurry and get down there. I don't know how much longer the person trapped has before the next collapse. And hopefully the both of you can escape before that…"

Samus didn't want to take xir word for it. After all, Sylux could have easily invented the story of someone trapped in the mine, but even her suit's sensors were now sending her signals of human biosigns. And then were coming from deep underground.

"This isn't over, Sylux," Samus said, glaring daggers at the figure clad in cobalt armor. "I don't know why you felt the need to attack this planet, or why you're—"

"Time is wasting, Samus," xe interjected, cutting her off. "Go now or you'll both die."

Samus didn't hesitate. Turning her back on her mysterious enemy, she ran headlong into the mineshaft. As the sinking dread filled her once again, she realized there was a very real chance she would end up trapped underground for a second time today, and while that thought terrified her, it didn't slow her down at all. She only had one objective now. Find the human and get him or her to safety before the final collapse.


	7. Ch 7: A Hero

**Author's Note:** Hi everyone. Just wanted to reach out again and thank you for reading this story. For those of you who have read the rest of the Human Series, you might notice there is something that happens in this chapter that ends up being important in the series later on. I won't give it away here, but if you happen to catch what it is, feel free to take a guess and I'll PM you and let you know if you caught it. :)

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you to those who have reviewed so far. And without further ado, I hope you enjoy chapter 7!

 **Chapter 7: A Hero**

Samus rushed into the opening of mine as quickly as she could. It didn't have a large opening, and as soon as she got in, she found a busted-up elevator shaft that must have led down into the mines themselves.

She took a deep breath. If there was one thing she hated nearly as much as Space Pirates, it was mineshafts, and after being crushed by hundreds of pounds of soil back on Acteaon, she was hesitant to go underground again. Just standing at the top and looking down was making her feel dizzy, but she had a feeling that had less to do with the mine itself and more with her extreme exhaustion. She couldn't see the bottom, but she didn't care. Bracing herself for what was about to come, she took a leap of faith.

It was a long way down to the bottom of the shaft, and she felt a sharp pain shoot through her leg as she landed on one knee. A quick glance at her HUD let her know her shielding had taken a good bit of damage from the fall. Samus just ignored it. She was tired and wanted to get in and out of this mine as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the collapse must have knocked out all of the lights because it was dark as pitch in there. Switching to her x-ray visor, she set off into the remains of the mine.

The damage was severe. She didn't get five feet into the mines before she found half-caved in ceilings and twisted metal beams. Someone had definitely set off a bomb in the mine itself, and any indication of what they had been mining was long gone at this point. She wondered if it had anything to do with the facility Sylux had claimed to have destroyed.

Shooting any kind of beam or missile would be a terrible idea in a mine this severely damaged, not that it mattered anyway given that her arm cannon was still unusable. Her suit's arm was definitely trying to repair itself, but until she got a real chance to rest, her actual arm wasn't going to heal very much.

Approaching the first cave-in, Samus noted that she wouldn't fit through the opening in her current state, but fortunately for her, there was just enough space for the morphball to fit through. So she curled into her ball form just long enough to pass through a small opening in the debris. The room she entered, however, was even darker than the first and easily twice as treacherous.

There was no flat ground to walk on here. Samus didn't know how anyone could have survived. There were only hills and valleys of debris, segments of rebar jutting out every which way and twisted beams that groaned under the weight of the remaining earth above. Samus knew she didn't have much time in here.

She hurried through the room as quickly as she could without doing any damage to it. But trying to be careful as she scaled the uneven piles slowed her down considerably. By the time she mad it to the other side, she wasn't looking forward to heading into the third room. Fortunately the entryway to this one was less blocked and she didn't need to change into her morphball form.

She was wondering if anyone could have possibly survived a cave-in of this magnitude when she heard something deep within the third room. She couldn't be sure what it was, but she thought it sounded like a voice, a distinctly human one. And it was calling out to her.

It took a minute for her to be sure it was a real voice and not one of the long dead ones that had been echoing through her mind since her fight on Acteaon, but she was certain it was real as soon as she stepped into the room and used her thermal visor to detect a faint heat signature on the far end of the room.

There was a steep drop-off between her and where she saw the small, huddled form, and that small form was hidden beneath a mountain of debris that must have somehow fallen around the person rather than on top of whoever it was. The voice calling out was as small as the form in the heat signature, and Samus realized the person was a child.

Not sparing a moment to climb down the drop off, Samus took another leap into the pit, feeling the same pain shoot through her leg as the first time, but she ignored it. The child's cries were getting louder and louder as she approached where the kid was trapped. Her breath was coming more quickly, and in her exhaustion it was getting harder to differentiate between the cries of the child and the ghosts of her own cries back on K-2L.

"Help me!" the small voice called out between hoarse screams. "Please, please help me!"

"I'm coming!" Samus called back as she all but threw herself in front of the debris structure that housed the child. Looking in through a small opening using a light in her visor, she saw that its occupant was a very dirty and frightened looking little girl. She couldn't have been older than six or seven.

Upon seeing the armored visor of the bounty hunter the child screamed even louder, cowering in the far back of the structure.

"It's okay," Samus tried, coaxing the girl toward her. She knew she herself wouldn't be able to fit through the opening in the debris, not even if she used the morphball. "I'm here to rescue you. But I need you to come out to me."

The girl just screamed in huddled in the corner, visibly trembling at the sight of Samus.

"No!" the child called out, hiding her face in her knees. "No more aliens!"

"I'm not an alien," Samus replied, listening for the groaning of the twisted beams in the last room. "I'm a human, just like you."

It wasn't technically true, and she hated lying about something like that. But now didn't seem like the time for a more in-depth explanation.

"You're a monster!" the child yelled. "I'm not letting you get me!"

Samus frowned. She knew there was no way she was going to get into the structure without risking a collapse, thus killing the little girl. She needed the child to crawl out to her, but as long as she was in her armor that wasn't going to happen.

Against her better judgment, she pulled her helmet off and looked back into the opening.

"Look. Look at me, kid!" I'm just a normal human woman like your mom or whoever!"

But the girl just stared at her in horror, her eyes focused far more on the armored suit with its massive shoulders than they were on Samus's face.

Samus sighed, putting a dirty armored palm to her face. She hated the thought of it, but she knew what she had to do. Taking a deep breath, she deactivated her armor, leaving her in just her dark blue flight suit with the pistol holstered at her waist. Now it was so dark, she was forced to draw the gun and use its attached light to illuminate herself enough for the girl to see.

"Look, like I said before, kid. I'm human."

The little girl stared at her curiously, though she seemed less afraid.

"What happened to your face?" the child asked.

It took Samus a minute to realize the girl was referencing her phazon scars, which she had all but forgotten about.

"They're just scars," the hunter said softly. "I was hurt in the war."

"Space Pirates?" the girl asked, recoiling a bit at the name of the creatures.

Samus nodded. "Yes. Space Pirates. But I'm all right now. And I'm here to help you."

The little girl made a motion to crawl forward, but she was hesitant.

"It's okay," Samus said, trying to speak gently and realizing how weird the calming tone sounded coming out of her mouth.

The little girl crawled forward, eventually wiggling out of the opening in the debris structure. When she stood up at stared at Samus, the bounty hunter could see just how filthy the child looked. Despite all the dust, however, she could make out a bit of red hair and a hint of freckles.

"I need to carry you to safety. It's too dangerous in here. Can I pick you up?"

The girl looked over to Samus's right arm, which still hung uselessly at the hunter's side.

"I don't know," the girl said. " _Can_ you?"

Samus huffed and nodded before scooping up the child in her left arm. "You're small. I don't need two arms to hold you. Just wrap your arms around my neck and your legs around my waist and hold on tight, okay?"

"Okay." The girl clung tightly to Samus as she buried her face in the bounty hunter's shoulder. Samus could feel her trembling, but she was thankful the girl was strong enough to hold on so tight. It was cumbersome trying to hold the child as well as the handgun with the attached light.

"I know it's dark in here and it's scary, but I just need you to be brave for a little while, okay? Don't panic. Just hold tight to me and I'll get us both out of here okay."

Samus hoped she wasn't lying to the kid. The cave-ins were devastating and there was a very real chance that the mines would totally collapse at any moment, but she had to try to get them both to safety before that happened. Without her suit, she definitely would not fair as well as she had back on Actaeon. And with the pains she could feel in her limbs as well as every time she took a breath, she knew her body had not faired all that well back on Actaeon.

The first hurdle was going to be getting up to the top of the pit she had jumped into to rescue the girl in the first place. Her vision was decent in the dark but not much better than a regular human's, and the drop-off was steep and treacherous. There were some edges and jutting pieces of rebar where it looked like she might be able to get hand and foot holds, but with only one functional arm and trying to balance both a child and the gun, she wasn't sure if climbing up was realistic. Still, she had to give it a try.

Letting go of the girl, she found the child had no problem clinging to her without Samus actually having to hold on to her. That was good, better than she had hoped. Sticking the gun with its attached light into her mouth, Samus began to climb up the side of the drop-off. There was no clear path to the top, particularly without a light to see, but she could feel where there were places for her to grab onto or step. She just had to hope none of them gave out under her weight. With only one arm, she was severely impaired and off balance as it was. In spite of all that, she managed to climb, pulling herself and the child up the side of the pit, dragging them both to the top despite her body protesting the exertion.

By the time Samus was standing on solid ground again, there was little doubt in her mind that her battle with Ridley had broken more than just her right arm. There were undoubtedly broken ribs somewhere, and something was going on with one of her legs. But she didn't have time to pay attention to that right now. As she rushed into the second room, she could still hear the steal beams groaning. There was dirt trickling from one part of the ceiling where it hadn't been the first time she had come through. Samus knew she needed to hurry.

Navigating the hills and valleys of debris had been hard enough alone and in her powersuit. Carrying the girl would normally be nothing to her, but she was exhausted and pretty beaten up already. The added weight, in addition to her dangling limb, was messing with her center of gravity.

At one point, a patch of debris collapsed under Samus's feet. The little girl screamed and almost let go as they both started to go down, but Samus caught the child and managed to stay on her feet. However, the sudden fall had thrown her momentarily off balance, and she managed to slice her upper left arm on some rusted rebar.

Samus grunted at the pain as blood dripped from her only good arm, but she pressed onward, using even more caution as she made her way through the rest of the treacherous room.

By the time she made it out to the first room of the mines, sweat was pouring down Samus's body and mingling with the blood from the gash on her arm. She needed to get them out of there as quickly as possible, a notion that was soon reinforced by the sounds of collapse back the way they had come. Samus had rescued the girl without a moment to spare.

There was only one obstacle left now. She had jumped down the mineshaft in her powersuit, but the way it was constructed left no hand or foot holds she could climb. Any elevator system that might have been there had been completely destroyed. She supposed she could have activated her power suit and attempted a space jump technique with the girl in her arms, but she didn't want to frighten the child worse than she already had been and it was a long way to travel upward in such a rapid spinning pattern. Samus decided against it.

"You still holding on tight?" she asked the kid.

The little girl nodded and tightened her grip around Samus's neck and waist.

"Okay good, because I need you to hold on as tight as you can now. I'll hold you too. We've got to get to the top of the mine shaft and it's a long way to fall if you let go."

The little girl made a soft crying noise as she clutched at Samus for dear life.

The bounty hunter just looked up at the long narrow shaft. It must have been at least fifty feet high, but she knew what she had to do.

Taking a running start, she launched herself at one of the walls of the narrow opening. Using all of her leg strength, she kicked off of that wall and launched herself at the one parallel to it. The little girl screamed as Samus pivoted midair and kicked herself off of the second wall and back to the first. She gained a little altitude with each wall kick as she climbed higher and higher up the shaft, constantly launching herself between the two parallel walls. The child didn't stop screaming the entire time, not even as they reached the top and stepped out of the mine.

Samus's leg and ribs were hurting terribly as she walked outside. She was panting heavily and absolutely drenched in sweat. Wall jumping was easy in her suit and usually not too bad without her suit, but she had never scaled fifty feet before without her armor. It had taken its toll on her, especially given her injuries.

She wasn't sure what she had expected to find once they finally made it outside, perhaps Sylux standing there waiting for a fight. The last thing she had expected was for most of the smoke to have cleared and for a crowd of people to be standing around watching her. As she saw all the humans staring at her and the child, her heart raced with a new spike of adrenaline.

"Cassandra!" a short red-haired woman called out suddenly as she ran toward Samus and the little girl.

"Mommy!" the girl called out, immediately perking up and reaching out to the red-haired woman. Once the woman was close enough, she all but snatched the child out of Samus's arms and pulled her into a tight hug. The two of them were soon joined by a pale man with dark hair, probably the child's father.

Samus could only look on silently, not sure what she was supposed to do with herself as the family was reunited. She couldn't relate to the situation. She'd never been through a disaster where all of her friends or family survived.

Most of the people had turned their attention to the reunited family, but a couple of people still stared at Samus. She knew she must have looked like Hell standing there bleeding, drenched in sweat, with one of her arms clearly broken.

After a while of standing in silence, one of the men approached her. He was a tall man, well dressed despite the dust they were all covered in. He was also as pale as the girl and her father, but his hair was a silver gray and he carried himself with the air of someone important.

"Who are you?" he asked as he studied Samus. "How did you get to this planet?"

Samus was quiet for a moment, dumbstruck about how to answer the question. Someone had undoubtedly seen her ship dock itself not far from where they were standing, and anyone who had seen it would have recognized it.

"You're Samus Aran, aren't you?" a stately-looking black woman asked as she stepped forward. "That's your ship we saw."

Samus wasn't sure what to say at this point. It would be almost impossible to plausibly deny her identity now, and she was so tired that her brain couldn't come up with even the dumbest of lies. So she just nodded instead.

"I knew it," the woman said with a big smile. "What someone as famous as you is doing on our planet, I have no idea, but we're just thankful you came when you did."

There was a buzz of excitement in the crowd, and all of the attention was making Samus nervous as people stared at her and talked amongst themselves.

"Hey Samus!" a younger woman's voice rang out and Samus instinctively turned to look at her. "Those scars on your face, are those from that phazon stuff?"

Samus touched the scarring around her right eye. "Yes… yes they are."

Then she realized someone was filming the interaction with a phone, and she covered her face as quickly as possible. There was no doubt video of that question was going to end up online, but she didn't have the wherewithal to deal with it right then. The edges of her vision were blurring, and the wave of dizziness had returned.

"Samus," the stately-looking woman said, reaching out and touching the bounty hunter's left forearm. "What happened down there? Are you all right?"

Samus just looked at her, unable to speak for a moment as the flash of cameras and the low roar of the crowd overloaded her senses.

Somehow, the woman seemed to realize what was happening, and she put a hand on Samus's back and began to lead her away from the crowd.

"Come on," she said in a gentle voice as she guided Samus away. "We need to get you out of here and to our hospital. We'll get you a private room and have some of your injuries looked at."

Samus didn't say anything. For a while, she just let the woman guide her down one of the streets and away from the site of the attack.

"It's not far to the hospital," the woman said as Samus realized the woman was roughly in her forties and dressed in a dust-covered red skirt suit.

"…Thank you," the bounty hunter managed after a few minutes.

"It's not a problem," the woman said as a small medical building came into view and she guided Samus toward it. "After all, you risked your life down in those mines and saved that little girl. You're a hero as far as everyone in this town is concerned!"

Samus didn't know how to respond to that so she just kept her mouth closed. She was too exhausted to argue with the woman.


	8. Ch 8: A Prisoner

**Author's Note:** Hey everyone, once again thanks for reading. I really appreciate it.

Im glad to be able to get these two chapters out within a week of one another and am hoping I can keep up that pace from here on out. Unfortunately, I had a death in my family last week so I've been pouring a lot of those emotions into writing. So hopefully chapter 9 wont be far behind (or possibly a long overdue update on Dreams Unwind. Maybe)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. A bit of a change of pace coming, which is good because I'm not sure how much longer Samus could continue at the pace she had been going. Lol. If you have time, please do leave a comment. They really do make my day!

 **Chapter 8: A Prisoner**

Samus didn't say much as the medic assessed her injuries and took her history. Mostly she was just thankful they had actually gotten her a private room. She was far too exhausted to deal with the crowd outside, and fortunately it seemed like there hadn't been many other injuries reported. Sylux may have blown up some factory and the mines, but at least xe had done it at a time when most people weren't around.

A nurse cleaned and bandaged her left arm where it had been sliced open by the rusted rebar. To be on the safe side, she also gave Samus a tetanus shot and a list of wound care instructions. The bounty hunter promptly discarded the care instructions though. She had been wounded more times than she could count and was well versed in the procedures for caring for herself. Not that it mattered. Something like that would heal itself so quickly it would make the nurse's head spin if she found out.

X-rays showed a series of broken bones, the most notable of which was the elbow Ridley had snapped. They had set it and given her a sling for her arm while it healed. Other than that there were some broken ribs from when she had been crushed and buried alive, and there was stress fracture in one of her shinbones. There wasn't much they could do for those injuries other than advise her to take it easy and get some rest while she healed, advice Samus had no interest in listening to as long as Sylux was out there. Still, she did appreciate the moment of downtime, and as she waited for the nurses to come back with anti-inflammatories and the like, she sat on the bed and rested her head against the wall. Closing her eyes, she tried to relax.

It wasn't long, however, before someone else knocked on the door and stepped into her room. Samus opened her eyes expecting to see one of the nurses coming in to bring her medicine, but instead of the kind nurse, a very angry looking military official was looking back at her.

He was a short man, pale with graying brown hair. Probably in his forties. There was nothing remarkable about him aside from the Federation Army Colonel's uniform.

"Samus Aran?" he demanded as he strode toward her.

Samus was on her feet in an instant, staring the man down. "What do you want?"

"You're under arrest," he said, holding up a piece of paper clearly marked as a warrant, "for violation of direct orders of the Galactic Federation Chairman Keaton as well as Fleet Admiral Dane."

"What the hell?" Samus was practically yelling as her body tensed and she backed away from the Colonel. "When did I—"

"Your little charade on Acteaon didn't go unnoticed. You were specifically ordered not to invade the planet until you were authorized to do so along with the Admiral's fleet. However, you advanced on the planet eighteen hours prior to the authorized time, caused severe damage to the structures there, and took off without informing anyone. Because of your actions, the Pirates' subterranean labs are now completely inaccessible and the entire mission has been compromised."

Samus glared at the officer, looking like she was ready to strike him. " _Ridley_ was on that planet. And he was just about healed up and ready to head out to who knows where and wreak more havoc on the galaxy! I took him out before he had the chance to do that! If I had waited for Dane's command, he would have gotten away!"

The Colonel paused and stared at her. "And where did you end up bringing the body of the Pirate Commander Ridley?"

"Where did I— What? I didn't take Ridley's body! If you know what I did to the planet's structures, then you would have also found the crater where I left his body!"

The Colonel seemed genuinely confused by her response but then the confusion faded to anger. "We found a crater that contained blood and tissue, but the body of the Pirate Commander was not recovered from the site."

Samus just stared at him, completely dumbfounded. Her posture tensed more, and now she was completely on edge.

"It would appear that not only did you violate your orders, but also that in violating your orders, you didn't check to make sure that the beast you killed was actually dead or that his body was even disposed of properly." He frowned. "Not that I should be surprised though considering how many times you've fought that creature and have still never managed to actually—"

The Colonel felt himself thrown backwards against a wall, a forearm slamming into his throat as Samus attacked him. She was about to throw an actual punch when someone shot her from behind. The bounty hunter only had just enough time to look over to the doorway before she was shot again, two more times. The third bullet found her crashing to the floor, her whole body suddenly paralyzed as she struggled to take more than shallow breaths. Whatever they had shot her with had contained some kind of paralytic agent.

"Told you it would take more than one to take her down," a woman's voice said as she heard more people walk into the room. Samus's vision was getting fuzzy, even fuzzier than it had been earlier.

"I thought she was a human," said another man's voice as Samus felt a weight on her back, pinning her down as he yanked her arms behind her back and cuffed them. She wanted to scream as he wrenched her broken elbow, but she couldn't make a sound. "One should have damn near killed her. How the fuck is she even still awake after _three_ of those things?"

"Told you," said the woman as a few more people shuffled in and tended to the officer Samus had assaulted. "Fucking hybrids. They look like the real thing but take tranq bullets like a damn Berserker. If she wasn't so banged up already when we got here, I'd bet you this one would still be fighting us with three in her."

Samus felt a boot nudge her face as she lay cuffed with her arms behind her back. She didn't like this. She was angry and wanted to kill them. Every instinct in her body was driving her to fight, but she couldn't move. Her vision was completely blank by this point and she was getting severely light headed. Still, Samus fought the urge to pass out.

"Shit, she's still fighting it," the woman said, but she sounded much further away as the haze was overtaking Samus.

"Should we give her one more or you think it would kill her?" the man asked.

"I don't think five more would kill her. This one's a tough bitch and I'm not risking her regaining movement on the trip back to Calliope IX!"

"Fair enough," the man replied.

Two more shots rang out, and Samus's world went blank.

* * *

The prison smelled like a mixture of piss, smoke, mildew, and that smell that comes from too many unbathed people being crammed into close quarters for far too long. It was a smell Samus remembered well from her youth, the stench that had clung to her skin and clothes for weeks after her release from her first stay in prison. A smell she had been able to smell until she was thrown into the Federation Army and they had shaved her matted, filthy hair into nothing but the thinnest layer of fuzz. This wasn't her first time back in the slammer since getting out to join the military twelve years ago, and she had a feeling that unless she died on her next mission, it wouldn't be the last.

She sat on a metal bench in an orange jumpsuit, her wrists and ankles shackled with her right arm back in its sling. No one had bothered trying to patch up the wounds from the tranq bullets, and there was now a dark bruise on her face where it had slammed into the floor when she fell. She looked like hell, and crammed into the tiny cell with seven other inmates awaiting processing, she could tell they were sizing her up and not seeing much of a threat. She figured she could at least use that to her advantage when the time came.

Some weird-looking hominid with four long tentacles in place of arms stared her down from the opposite bench. Samus couldn't be bothered to engage with glaring at the alien woman. She had been in her share of prison brawls over the years and was in no mood for another one, but she knew she could take the lot of them if it came down to it. The shackles weren't actually strong enough to hold her, and there was nothing they could do to stop her from simply activating her power suit if it came down to it.

Not that it would. She was playing it safe for now, sitting there on her best behavior. She already had enough charges against her for the time being, including the aggravated assault of the arresting officer. She didn't need anything else on her record. The only thing she cared about was getting out of this situation as quickly as possible with minimal collateral damage. Ridley, or at least his body, was still out there in addition to Sylux. And there was no telling what either of them was up to. In the worst-case scenario, she fully planned to break out of the prison by force.

The tentacle woman looked like she was about to say something to her, but just at that moment a greenish Centurian cop strode into the room and held up a piece of paper.

"Aran," the equine officer called out, looking directly at Samus. He didn't bother calling out her first name.

Samus saw the tentacle woman do a double take between the cop and the bounty hunter, but "Aran" was such a common last name for humans that it didn't matter. Samus stood up and gave the woman a smug look as the centaur-being opened the door and led her out of her cell.

"Come with me," he said, taking her by her unbroken elbow and leading her down a cement block hallway.

Samus didn't say anything. She knew this was how processing worked here. She'd been through the process enough times, usually on this same planet, so she was very surprised when he led her past the processing room and into one of the offices.

"Seems like you have friends in high places, girl," the officer said to her as he shoved her into an office and slammed the door behind her as he left.

It took Samus a moment to process what was going on until she realized what he had been talking about. There, in the middle of the office, stood someone she immediately recognized.

He was a tall man, an inch or so taller than Samus herself, and he had dark black hair with only the tiniest hint of gray. Dressed in the uniform of a Federation Army General, he had a tired looking and serious face with piercing gray eyes. And Samus could not be more surprised to see him there.

"Adam…?" she asked, completely dumbfounded as one of the two police officers standing beside him came to undo her restraints. Samus could only stare in shock as she allowed the officer to remove her shackles.

"Hello, Samus," he said in a cool and detached voice. "It appears you've made bail and are being released into my custody."

Samus could only stare at the General in shock. She looked like Hell and hadn't expected to see him here in a million years, let alone to find out that her former commanding officer had come to prison to bail her out.

"Why…?" She couldn't wrap her head around his presence or what he had meant when he said she was being released into his custody.

"My ship is outside in the docking port. We should hurry and get to it. I promised Marza I'd be home by seventeen-hundred." Adam stepped around Samus and opened the office door, gesturing for her to walk out into the hallway. It felt very strange to her to be standing there, unshackled and apparently free to go.

"You're not—" She paused. "You're not afraid I'm going to just run off and do something reckless again?"

"I should hope you don't." Adam gave her a very serious look. "I put my house up for collateral to bail you out. If you run, I forfeit that."

Samus could only stand there and stare at him in shock. Was he serious? Had he actually taken that big of a risk on someone who was as much of a flight risk as she was?

She didn't say anything as she followed him out into the hall, not even as he led her out of the building and to his ship in the docking port. She just thought quietly to herself for a while about everything that had happened since she had been knocked out by the tranquilizer bullets and been unconscious for a couple of hours on the trip to Calliope IX. Apparently the fact that she woken up after only a couple of hours had terrified the guards supervising her transport. It had been another hour or so until she regained her full ability to move though.

Adam's ship wasn't as large or as fancy as Samus's. It was more like a personal vehicle than the kind of thing a person lived on and took into battle. There was only a cockpit with some storage in the back, none of the accouterments of a hunter class gunship. Just a standard gray ship, the kind families might lease if they did a lot of space travel.

Samus took a seat next to Adam in the cockpit as he fired up the engines and got ready to take off. She wasn't used to being in a passenger seat on someone else's ship, but she figured she was better off keeping her mouth closed about that. There was one topic, however, she couldn't stay silent about.

"So you're taking us back to your place?" she asked, fidgeting a bit with the sling around her arm. "You know how I feel about going to Earth…"

"We're not going to Earth," he said as the ship lifted off and headed out of the atmosphere. "We're going to where I'm staying on one of the Army bases. Marza and the girls are there for a couple of months since school is out for the summer on Earth."

Samus just nodded. That was better than anything she could have hoped for. There were two places in the galaxy she absolutely could not bring herself to visit: Earth and the memorialized K-2L.

"You'll have full run of the base, at least all of the areas civilians are permitted in. But you won't be permitted to leave, at least not until I can get the charges dropped. You'll be fitted with an ankle monitor to make sure you stay within the boundaries permitted. Understand?"

"…and if I break the rules and leave without authorization?"

Adam stared at her very seriously again. "You won't."

Samus didn't say anything for a long while as the ship flew through hyperspace and toward whatever base Adam was stationed on this time. She thought his trust in her was severely misplaced, but then again it was the most Adam thing she could think of. He was, after all, the same man who had saved her from being thrown out of the army and sent back to prison, and he had helped her be selected for that first mission to Zebes that had really launched her mercenary career and helped her get some much-needed vengeance against Ridley and the Space Pirates. And here he was again, bailing her out of her own mess. Putting his house on the line as he worked to get the charges against her dropped.

She thought his trust in her was severely misplaced, but she had no intention of violating it. Not after everything he had done for her over the years.

"I fucked up big time," she said after they had been flying in silence for a while. She looked to Adam, but he kept his eyes on the forward window.

"I'm not going to argue with that."

She cast her gaze downward, wondering just how much she had cost the Federation by demolishing the Pirate's lab and how many lives she had cost in failing to incinerate Ridley's body yet again.

"But I think," Adam said after a minute, "that Cassandra Philips would say otherwise."

Samus blinked in confusion. "Who?"

"That little girl you saved from the fuel gel mine. Cassandra Philips. There's no doubt in anyone's mind that she would be dead right now if you hadn't blown off Acteaon and gone after that distress signal."

Samus actually smiled a bit hearing that, but it was the faintest hint of a smile. She was glad she had at least been able to save the child even if she had caused an intergalactic catastrophe with her recklessness.

"Of course, we're still no closer to knowing what exactly Sylux's endgame is," Adam said as they flew along. "Although I suspect xe trapped that girl in the mine intentionally after blowing up the genetics facility."

Samus tilted her head curiously. "Why trap the girl if xe had already taken out the facility?"

Adam looked at her as it suddenly dawned on him that she had no way of knowing what had happened next. "While you were down in the mine saving that girl, Sylux's ship, the Delano 7, shot down another ship headed for Daiban. It was the research and development team from the facility. They were transporting some of their findings to the labs at the Capitol."

A sobering wave of heaviness rolled over Samus as she heard that. She had saved one life at the cost of who knew how many more. And Sylux had planned that.

"Xe trapped that girl in the mine just to divert me."

Adam nodded. "Sounds like it."

"What was so special about that facility and their findings that Sylux bothered with all that?"

"Those are the questions you should be asking," Adam said with a nod. "Why is Sylux targeting the things xe is targeting?"

"It was a genetics facility you said… right by a fuel gel mine. They wouldn't need that kind of energy resource if they were just doing regular research. That's Space Pirate level shit." Samus paused. "Bioweapons research is illegal in Federation territory."

"That planet was near Acteaon, a Space Pirate base," Adam said, finally looking at Samus. "It wasn't in Federation territory."

The bounty hunter's eyes widened as she put the pieces together and wondered why she hadn't before. "That facility was working on bioweapons… and sending the findings of that work straight to the Federation Capitol on Daiban."

She felt a sudden spike of anger deep within her. She knew Adam opposed bioweapons research with every fiber of his being, yet somehow he had accepted her despite her obviously being one herself.

"The Pirates outclass us in weaponry," Adam continued, "in no small part because of their willingness to create bioweapons and pour time and effort into that research. It's illegal to do that kind of research under Federation law, but not to enlist the aid of bioweapons that have been created outside of that jurisdiction."

Samus didn't say anything, but she could feel herself beginning to shake with anger again. The tremor was returning to her right hand, but the break in her elbow was making it far more painful than it had been before.

She was a bioweapon, and the Federation had enlisted her aid in the war numerous times. She had been an idiot to think they wouldn't have done that with someone else or facilitated in places outside their jurisdiction doing research they could farm in once it was finished. She felt sick to her stomach.

"I think I'm going to throw up," she said, her voice surprisingly small as she felt a stabbing feeling in her stomach.

Adam looked concerned as he noticed the tremor in her right arm.

"Easy," he said, putting a hand firmly on her back and steadying her. "You're all right, Sam. Just… easy. Take a few deep breaths."

Samus just nodded and did as he said, slowly breathing in and out and trying to calm herself. His presence helped her ground herself in a way she couldn't when she was alone, and slowly the knot in her stomach loosened and she could breathe much more easily. Eventually, she no longer felt nauseous, and to her surprise, her hand stopped trembling. She just stared at it in amazement.

"Leftovers from the phazon withdrawal?" he asked once she seemed steady.

"How did you know?"

"I remember seeing it happen the time I came to see you in the hospital when you were going through the worst of it. I don't think you remember. That first week was pretty brutal from what Dane told me."

"Heh… I guess you're right. I did forget a lot of what happened early on."

It was Adam's turn to nod quietly as they exited hyperspace. "We're here."

Samus looked up out of the forward window to see their destination coming into view. She had expected them to be heading off to a planet somewhere, so it surprised her when they approached a massive domed space station.

"You're family is staying with you here?" she asked, giving him a look.

Adam just nodded again. "It's not ideal but it's part of the reason I was allowed to take you into my custody. There are only a few exit and entrance points on this station, and they are all heavily monitored.

Samus sighed and looked back at the station. She had a feeling all she had done was move from one prison into a bigger one, but at least she'd have more freedom here. And hopefully she'd finally be able to get some actual sleep.


	9. Ch 9: Grounded

**Author's note:** Okay, I know I said I wasn't going to post here anymore because I was being stalked and harassed, but fuck that shit. I like posting fan fiction and I'm not letting some loser who has nothing better to do with his life than sexually harass women dictate where I do and do not post my work. I just don't give a damn anymore, and I'm gonna do what I want. Burn in my indifference.

At any rate, here's chapter 9 and I'm sorry for the delay.

 **Chapter 9: Grounded**

Adam's house on the military station was larger than Samus had expected, although she supposed all she had been picturing were the barrack structures she had lived in during her time in the army. Instead they had walked through the front door and into a modest but functional living room that opened into a dining area and a kitchen. There was an entryway leading to a hall down which she supposed the bedrooms were located. Decorations were sparse, which made sense given that it was a house they were only renting while on the base, but Adam's wife Marza had managed to spruce it up with some hunter green curtains and a few paintings of landscapes.

Most of the living room area was occupied by an "L"-shaped couch, and that was where Samus now sat, clutching her tattered blue flight suit to cover her bare chest. Adam sat in front of her, supervising as Marza tended to the wounds on her back. Though the bullets she had been shot with were merely tranquilizers, they had still managed to bury themselves in her body and had done a good deal of superficial damage.

Marza was a petite woman, not thin but not heavy-set either. She had sharp brown eyes and short brown hair that she wore pinned back and out of the way. And fortunately for Samus, she was very experienced nurse. Even more fortunately, she was one of the few people Samus actually trusted to care for her.

For a while, Samus just stayed silent. She was having a hard time taking in all that was happening to her. She should have been in jail, locked in a cell. Possibly fighting off the women who had eyed her as an easy target. She'd done it before, more times than she was proud of.

Instead, she wasn't in a cage of cinderblocks and steel. She was in someone's home, sitting on a soft couch. Adam, the closest thing she had to a friend, sat before her as Marza carefully tended to the wounds the prison doctors had ignored. They had gone out on a limb, once again, to help her, and Samus was overcome by feelings she couldn't understand.

Each gentle touch from Marza filled her with guilt, and surrounded by such kindness, all she could feel was shame. In her mind, she didn't deserve this; she deserved prison. Punishment was easy and familiar. It just made sense. Being invited into Adam's home and cared for didn't make any sense. And allowing someone to treat her wounds, making herself vulnerable like that, was humiliating.

But Samus was too tired to fight it. She was still exhausted from so many sleepless days and battles that seemed to just fade into each other, one after another. She didn't have the energy to protest Marza caring for her anymore than she had the energy to fight when they had locked the monitor on her ankle when she had first arrived at the base.

Her exhaustion and conflicted feelings must have been obvious because when she looked up again at Adam, she could see worry deeply etched into his face. She supposed she should have been used to Adam's concern by now given that he had looked out for her ever since he had been her commanding officer in the Army over a decade ago.

All of the seemingly contradictory emotions swirled inside of Samus and settled in a tight knot in her stomach until she felt sick. She didn't understand what was wrong with her and why she couldn't just be grateful instead of feeling ashamed. But the truth was simply that she was so used to being treated harshly that any deviation from that set her on high alert. And being shown genuine kindness terrified her more than anything.

She looked back down, still clutching the tattered flight suit over her chest. It hurt to breathe, her bruised and broken ribs putting too much pressure on her chest. All of her instincts screamed at her to bolt for the door and escape, but she suppressed them. There was nowhere to go, not without access to her ship. And she wouldn't do that to Adam, not when he had gone out on such a limb for her.

"That should be the last of it," Marza said as she gently finished affixing the sterile pad to the final bullet wound. "And knowing how quickly you heal, I wouldn't be surprised if you're all better before I get a chance to change the dressing."

Samus tried to force herself to smile, but she failed and just nodded instead. Marza knew all about her recovery times, probably better than anyone aside from Adam, though it had been years since the nurse had last treated her. Ever since her mission to Zebes three years ago, Samus had been more withdrawn than ever, keeping to herself and the medical bay on her ship any time she was injured.

"Must been something forceful to break _your_ ribs," Marza said with a light chuckle.

Samus hesitated for a moment.

"I was buried underground. A tunnel complex collapsed on me after an explosion."

Marza's eyes widened, though Samus still had her back to her and couldn't see. "That's horrifying. It's amazing— and very fortunate— that you survived!"

The bounty hunter didn't know how to respond to that sentiment and just shrugged her shoulders. "I fucked up the mission."

"You saved a child's life," Adam said sternly, speaking for the first time since Marza had begun treating her wounds. Samus looked up and met his eyes. "And you're alive. And you can beat yourself up all you want about disobeying your orders and compromising the issue, but you are not going to sit here acting like the fact that you survived all that is inconsequential."

Samus just nodded. She didn't know what to say. Her vision was bleary and all she could feel was the gut-wrenching guilt.

"Maybe it's time to go to bed, Samus," Marza said, softly placing a hand on the woman's back as she stood up. "You must be exhausted after all you've been through."

Adam stood up as well, and Samus eventually followed suit, still pressing the tattered flight suit up to her chest with both her good arm and the broken one in its cast. She was so drunk on sleep deprivation that it never occurred to her that she could just put the top half of her flight suit back on instead of holding it like a towel.

Adam noticed how zoned out she looked as she stood there clutching the suit, and he decided it was best not to press her any further about the botched mission. Instead, he led her through the kitchen and into the hallway, turning to open a door to one of the bedrooms.

"This is Abridgette's room," he said, "and the bathroom is just outside in the hall. Abby will be sleeping on the pullout mattress in her sister's room so you can have a room to yourself."

Samus looked into the room. It was cool and dark, the curtains drawn to keep out any light. The room was as sparsely decorated as the rest of the house, but there were a few posters tacked onto the walls, mostly of boy bands the mercenary had never seen before. There was a small desk in one corner of the room and a full-size bed in the corner farthest from the window. The bed was turned down with fresh sheets and a heavy blanket, a pitcher and glass of water waiting for her on the nightstand.

"We have it all set up for you, Sam," Marza said as she led the bounty hunter into the room and handed her a man's plain white tee shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms. Samus didn't know how to react as she took the offered clothes. "If there's anything else you need, just let us know. Adam and I will be home for a while, and when the girls get back, we'll make sure they're quiet so they don't disturb you. You just get some rest for now, all the rest you need."

Samus just stared at Marza as she left the room. Adam stayed behind, however, and pulled a pill bottle from the pocket of his slacks. He took two of the big white pills from the bottle before closing it and leaving it on the nightstand. Then he offered them to Samus with the glass of water.

"To help you sleep," he said as she took the pills and just looked at them for a moment. "They told me this was the same prescription you were on while you were in the hospital, the one you were supposed to get filled the day you left."

Samus just stared at the pills a while longer before putting them in her mouth and swallowing them down with the water. Then she wordlessly handed the glass back to Adam.

"The officers gave me your other prescriptions too, the ones you also stopped taking suddenly when you got out of the hospital." Adam's tone was quiet but firm. "I was able to get everything filled for you at the prison pharmacy before you came out. I'm not going to give you a lecture on why abruptly stopping psychiatric medication is a problem, but I will tell you that actually taking it this time was a condition of you being released to me on bail."

Samus was quiet for a moment as she tried to process any of the fleeting thoughts passing through her head.

"Why are you doing this?" she finally asked, meeting Adam's eyes once again.

"Because you're going through a hard time and having a problem. And locking you away in a jail cell isn't going to help you or anyone else. At least here you can get some real rest in a clean and safe environment amongst people who actually care about your wellbeing. And who understand the things you've done and the sacrifices you've made for the sake of the galaxy."

Samus wasn't sure what to say to that.

"We care about you," Adam continued once it was obvious Samus didn't plan to respond. "Sometimes I think the Federation loses sight of the fact that you're a person."

That caught the mercenary's attention as she glared at him. "I think you lose sight of the fact that I'm not a person. I'm a weapon. It doesn't matter what kind of kindness you show to me. I'm just going to finish serving out my purpose until I get killed in battle, and then all the energy you wasted on me won't matter because I'll be gone."

Adam didn't get defensive. He just got very quiet and stared at her sadly. When he finally spoke again, it was in a much softer tone.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Samus," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper as he took the water glass back from her, refilled it from the pitcher, and set it back down on the nightstand. "But I don't think that my energy is ever wasted on you, even if you died tomorrow. I don't know what you went through in life to make you see yourself as nothing but a weapon that was undeserving of even the bare minimum of human decency, but I'm not going to reinforce that idea. We care about you, whether you care about yourself or not."

"That's—" Samus stopped, shook her head, and sighed. "I don't even know anymore. Do what you want. I'm exhausted…"

"Just try to get some sleep," he said as he took he leave and walked back toward the door. "We don't have to get into the philosophies of exactly what you are or what anything means in the long run. Not now. For now, all you have to do is rest, and I'll see what I can handle on the legal end of this whole situation."

Samus just nodded. She couldn't argue against his logic, even with as combative as she was feeling. After all, she wanted to rest every bit as badly as he wanted her to rest.

"Goodnight, Samus," Adam said as he backed out of the door slowly, closing it behind him and leaving her alone in the cool dark room.

"Goodnight, Adam," she muttered under her breath once he was well out of earshot.

For a while, she just stood still in the room, listening to the sounds of him and Marza moving quietly about the house. It wasn't large enough for them to go anywhere that Samus wouldn't be able to hear them, but it was okay. She preferred on some level that she could keep track of their presence. Everything about the situation felt surreal, and hearing the hushed familiar voices gave her something to hold onto.

Another wave of the intense drowsiness washed over her head again, and this time it was enough to find her swaying on her feet. There was a lag to her vision as she looked around the room, the same way there always was when she was incredibly sleep deprived. She doubted the sedatives she had taken were already kicking in. This was just how tired she was.

Letting her tattered flight suit fall away from her chest at last, she let her sports bra drop to the floor as she removed the rest of the suit. After staring at the white tee shirt for a while, she pulled it over her head, carefully maneuvering her broken arm through the sleeve. Then she pulled on the pajama bottoms, obviously also made for a man, but she was used to that. Her towering height and bulky musculature made it difficult to find clothes intended for female humans, not that she cared much for women's clothing anyway.

At last, she turned to the bed and slowly ran a hand over the soft blanket. The sheets were crisp and cool to the touch, the mattress far softer than the pilot's chair on her ship. It didn't feel like she belonged here.

Sylux was still somewhere out in the galaxy, off doing who knew what after killing all of the scientists onboard that ship headed to Daiban. And now Ridley was out there somewhere as well, all because she had gotten cocky and tried to take down Acteaon single-handedly and didn't even bother to make sure she had finished the job before rushing off to take Sylux's bait on the mining colony.

"How many people are dead now because of me?" she muttered to herself as she stared down at the bed. She looked around the room again, the room of Adam and Marza's pre-teen daughter. There wasn't much in it, but from what she could see it was the room of an innocent young girl with a family that loved her deeply.

"I don't deserve this," she whispered and looked back down at the bed. "I don't belong here."

She wondered if the officer she had assaulted was recovering well or if she had seriously hurt yet another person with her rage and recklessness. It was like she was a sickness, a corruption not unlike the one that had ravaged her body during her last mission. And she was putting other people at risk just by being around them.

With a blink of her eyes, she saw a flash of her own form in the Varia Suit, down on the ground and reaching toward her with its last breath before being claimed by her Dark Other. The vision, brief as it was, made her feel sick to her stomach as she thought back to Ghor and Rundas's deaths as well. The moment she had seen her fellow hunter impaled on his own ice spike. It was too much.

Despite all of the scans that told her she was clean, despite all logic, she could still feel the phazon corruption within her, and it was if it had seeped in and poisoned her very soul. She could feel them all. Ghor, Rundas, Gandrayda, and her Dark Other. All still within her, ghosts that had never gone away. All dead by her hand. Three because of her failure and one after far too long.

Letting Ridley and Sylux escape only added to the body count as far as she was concerned, the body count she was responsible for.

Exhaustion rocked her body again as she swayed drunkenly and braced her arms against the bed. It was getting harder to see and stand. At this point there was no doubt in her mind the medicine was kicking in, and she crawled slowly into the bed just to be on the safe side. The last thing anyone needed was for her to fall over and pass out on the floor, over two hundred pounds of unconscious bioweapon.

As she settled into the bed, she could feel her body sink comfortably into the mattress. The pillow seemed like it was made for her head as it cradled her softly. Samus pulled the sheet and blanket up over her body to find the blanket had a good deal of weight to it. She couldn't help but relax as it pressed down on her gently like a hug.

She closed her eyes as she lay in the bed, exhausted but still fighting to stay awake, afraid of losing control of herself, afraid of losing consciousness.

Samus couldn't keep it up for long though. The battles and her injuries, both physical and psychological, had taken a heavy toll on her. Within a matter of minutes, the feared bounty hunter was fast asleep, curled up tight and snuggled beneath the covers.


	10. Ch 10: Re-evaluation

**Author's Note:** Hello! I know this chapter also isn't the longest one I've ever posted. It was technically supposed to be the second half of the previous chapter, but between the two of them it was way too long. I'd rather have two chapters that are slightly shorter than the others than one super long chapter that's almost twice the length of the rest.

So, Samus isn't actually in this chapter, but I don't think that's a bad thing. She needs a nap. A little down time isn't going to kill her. Next time we see her, she'll be in a better mood.

 **Chapter 10: Re-evaluation**

Adam supposed that Samus had not fallen asleep immediately after he had left the room, but he figured that she would drift off relatively quick seeing how out of it she had been and knowing the strength of the medication she had taken. He wasn't surprised when he eventually walked back through the hallway and didn't hear any sounds coming from her room. Normally he would have expected more resistance from Samus if he had suggested she rest while there was still a massive threat at large. The fact that she didn't try to fight at all concerned him almost as much as what she had said before going to bed.

It was no secret that Samus Aran was some kind of a bioweapon, and obviously not one made by humans or anyone within Federation territory. No one in the entire military had ever seen anything like her unique battle armor and the way it seemed to phase on and off through the power of her will alone. Of course, he knew that it simply reverted to a small size, taking the size of the circle and lightning bolt pendant chained around her neck.

But the fact remained: anyone who had paid any attention over the years could tell that Samus was a bioweapon. The problem was when it became the only aspect of her that they could see. And unfortunately, it looked like Samus herself was falling prey to that same mentality. She didn't place any value on her life, only its usefulness in relation to other people. There were times Adam legitimately wondered if Samus had any sense of her own identity outside of her mercenary work, and it was looking like the answer to that was a hard no.

He had just decided to fix himself a sandwich and was going for the refrigerator when he heard a knock at the door. With a disappointed grunt, General Malkovich abandoned his potential lunch and walked over to see who was there.

A quick glance through peephole let him see that it was a woman dressed in the full uniform of a Federation Army General. Recognizing her but still surprised to see her, Adam opened the door.

"Adèle?"Adam looked over the six and a half-foot form of the woman before him. She was an older woman, around fifty years old. Her gray and brown hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and the lines on her face suggested she was of a rather severe demeanor. "What brings you here this afternoon?"

"I heard it through the grape vine that you had a visitor," she said, glancing over his shoulder and into the house. "I came to see if the rumors were true."

Adam frowned and stepped outside, pulling the door closed behind him. "I hope word isn't getting spread around too far."

Adèle shook her head. "I heard it straight from General Roberts since he was supposed to be meeting with the team on the ship that was blown up by the Sylux creature. Roberts said you picked up Aran from her cell on Calli IX."

"I hope this isn't becoming some kind of scandal. I would hardly think the company I choose to keep is any of General Roberts' business."

Adèle shook her head again, looking mildly exasperated. "Fortunately for you, your personal affairs are being overshadowed by the deaths of the twelve scientists from Project Dread. No one cares that much about your continuous insistence on associating with that mercenary."

"Is that all you wanted then, General Harper?" Adam asked, his patience starting to wear thin with her. "To see for yourself if I'm harboring Samus here?"

"Hardly. Roberts is over in the Command Center. He came straight over here from Daiban following the incident. He thinks Aran knows more about whatever the hell this Sylux thing is than she's letting on, but I talked him down from storming over here himself and demanding to meet with her. I figured even if she was with you, she probably wouldn't be in a great mood coming fresh out of jail after assaulting her arresting officer. I wouldn't want Roberts caught in the crossfire of one of her episodes."

"And you want me to bring Samus to the Command Center to meet with him?"

"Look, Adam, we all know you're fond of that mercenary for some reason, but I do _not_ want her anywhere near the command center if we can avoid it. I figured I'd come over here and talk to you and then report back to him that she's indisposed for whatever reason and have you talk to him instead."

Adam mulled it over for a few seconds. "I have some time to meet with him right now. Samus will be fine for now on her own."

"Good, good." General Harper gestured down the steel-plated road of the military base, past the rows of short metal housing units identical to Adams. "Let's be off then."

For a while, the two Generals walked in silence along the road through the residential units. It was unusually quiet on the base that day since there were only a handful of officers present at the moment. The vast majority of the troops who would normally occupy the homes were deployed on missions elsewhere. The lack of life on the compound was eerie, particularly in conjunction with the artificial sky projected overhead. It was supposed to make the station's residents feel like they were planetside down on Earth, but it just contrasted uncomfortably against the very artificial metallic structures that served as temporary housing and other buildings.

"It's been a while since I've seen you in person, Adèle," Adam said to break up the silence. "Not since your daughter's wedding and that was— what? Three? Six months ago?"

"A year," she corrected with a small smile forming on her lips. "She's been married for a year now. And it seems there's more to come. I'll be a grandmother soon."

"That's wonderful." Adam smiled warmly at his companion. "Truly. As deep into the thick of this war as we are, there's something comforting in the thought of the next generation continuing on."

Harper nodded. "I'm sure the day will come soon enough when you look over and discover your girls are grown women. It seems like it happens in the blink of an eye. Just knowing she's out there living her life and growing her family, it keeps me going. Reminds me what we're fighting for."

Neither of them said anything else for the rest of the walk down to the Command Center, but the mood was significantly less tense than it had been when they had left Adam's house. He had known General Harper for as long as he had been in the service, and while they had never been particularly close, it was comforting to have had at least one person be a constant in his life, especially with how many soldiers he had known and lost over the past twenty-five years since the war began.

The Command Center building didn't look much different than the steel-plated housing units, but it was significantly larger and taller. It was where all of the administrative work on the base took place as well as where the highest-ranking officials gathered to strategize and set their plans into action.

It was eerie to see this building as empty as much of the rest of the compound. There was no one even manning the front desk as Harper led Adam up the stairs and to a conference room on the second floor.

As Harper led Adam into the room, they found General Roberts sitting alone at a long faux-wooden conference table. The gray-haired man was also dressed in his General's uniform. Between Roberts and Harper in full uniform, Adam was starting to feel very underdressed in only his civilian wear.

The three human Generals all shook hands and greeted one another before taking seats around the table, ready to get down to business.

"I'm sure Harper has filled you in on why I'm here, Malkovich," Roberts began, his irritation showing through even as he tried to keep up his façade of civility.

"Yes," Adam replied. "The destruction of the ship traveling from the mining planet A-25 to the Capitol on Daiban. And of course the deaths of the twelve scientists on board. A truly horrific matter. My deepest sympathies for their families."

Roberts ignored the last sentence, as all three people in the room knew they had become functionally numb to the deaths of strangers and Adam's offer of condolences was merely a matter of formality.

"I want to know right now, Malkovich," Roberts said, eyeing Adam warily. "Aran was on that planet, A-25, when the Sylux creature took off and attacked that ship. Aran didn't go after the Sylux creature. Did you give her the order to hold her fire and stop her from pursuing and killing the Sylux creature?"

Adam blinked in surprise. "I beg your pardon? You think _I_ told Samus not to pursue Sylux and the Delano 7? So Sylux could go after the ship full of scientists and kill them before they reached Daiban?"

"Cut the crap, Malkovich. We both know they were carrying prototype bioweapons on board that ship, and you're one of the most adamantly anti-bioweapon spokespeople in the military. And we all know Aran is your little pet or something, so if anyone could call her back, it would have been you."

"First of all, Samus Aran is not my pet, and I don't appreciate you referring to her that way," Adam said, his face and tone deathly serious as he glared daggers at General Roberts. "Secondly, while I oppose the use and creation of bioweapons, I by no means wished to see any of the scientists from A-25 killed. Samus didn't pursue Sylux because she went down into the mines to save a child who was trapped by the explosion. Neither she nor I knew about what Sylux was planning to do to the scientists."

"You honestly expect us to believe," Roberts demanded, glaring back at Adam and matching his level of ferocity, "that the mercenary cared more about saving some trapped kid than about collecting a bounty on one of the most wanted criminals in the galaxy? Or even if we are to believe your twisted idea that Aran is somehow more _noble_ than the rest of her lot, that she would let a galactic threat go just so she could save one kid at the expense of who knows how many other lives? Is Aran just that much of an idiot or did you call her back?"

Adam shot up out of his chair and slammed his hands down on the table. "I will not tolerate this. I came in here for a meeting regarding the recent deaths of the scientists from A-25. I didn't come in here just to have false accusations lobbed at me and listen to you prattle on about your crackpot conspiracy theories. I'm leaving."

Adam turned and stormed out of the room, clenching his fist in rage as soon as he was back out into the hallway. He had no patience for Roberts now, not that he ever had much patience for Roberts. The man had gone out of his way to farm out bioweapons research on the Outer Planets just to avoid being beholden to Federation law, and Adam already detested him with every fiber of his being.

"Wait!" a voice called out as Harper sprinted from the conference room and grabbed Adam's shoulder from behind.

General Malkovich froze but shrugged her hand off.

"I didn't know he was going to attack you like that," Harper said. "I legitimately thought he was just trying to meet with us so we could work on fixing the Sylux problem."

Adam glared at her and proceeded to walk away, his mouth set into a grim line as he felt the rage pulsing through him.

"I mean it," Harper continued, keeping pace and walking alongside him as the General stormed toward the stairwell and the exit of the administrative building. "I didn't know Roberts was going to start making false accusations."

Adam ignored her until they were both outside again, at which point he spun around and stared her down. "You're complicit in his schemes. You know I oppose Roberts' insistence on this research, but you've never raised a finger to stop it."

"Adam, you know I agree with you about bioweapons research for the most part but—"

"But?"

"Well… have you ever considered that maybe we're not on the right side of this issue? This war has been going on for twenty-five years. The Space Pirates have bioweapons, and they're kicking our ass. The only times we've even come close to gaining a foothold is when we've resorted to using Aran and a few of the bounty hunters like her. Now our top mercenaries are all dead with the exception of Aran, and at the rate she's going you know she isn't far behind."

Adam hesitated, dumbstruck by Harper's statement.

"Well?" she pressed.

"I'd say that's a grim prediction but unfortunately, I think Samus agrees with you. About her imminent death at any rate. I won't pretend to know how she feels about the bioweapons."

"Once she's gone, we're done for. The military is exhausted and the Space Pirates are advancing their technology far faster than we can since all of our resources are spent. Especially after pouring so much of the budget into the PED research. We're at the end here, Adam, and you know it. It's either we catch up with our enemies or we're dead in the water."

"…I'm starting to think you've already switched sides in this debate, Adèle."

"I'm just… tired. We're all just tired, Adam. When this war started, I was a new mom, and now I have my first grandchild on the way. I don't want my grandkid to grow up in the same kind of world my daughter had to. If we can end this war…"

They both fell silent, a heaviness hanging over the two Generals. For a long time, neither of them spoke as they reflected on what Harper had said. Finally Adam broke the silence.

"I just can't, Adèle. You know I just cannot in good conscience support bioweapon research. I don't think living things should be enslaved to the military, especially not those too young to consent. I've seen the effects it's had on Samus. We both know that she's… damaged."

"And I'm trying to be sympathetic to that, but if we had a few more beings like Samus, we could save billions of lives. It's a sacrifice, we've all made sacrifices. And if we are being frank here, I'm not sure associating with Aran or using her as the baseline for anything involving ethics is the best idea."

"Samus is the best example we have."

"Aran is an extremely volatile and dangerous person who's only been getting worse over time. You've invited her into your _home_ with your _family_. I'm just worried. I'm afraid that woman is going to be the death of you."

"Samus would give her _life_ for my family."

"You can't know that. She's changed. You've changed. The entire universe has changed and it's only going to get worse before it gets better, if it gets better."

"I have full faith in Samus Aran."

"And I just hope your faith never needs to be tested, and if it is, I hope she pulls through for you. But the fact remains, the fate of the entire Galactic Federation cannot ride on the back of Samus Aran. Especially not when she's already showing signs of collapsing under it. We know about the botched mission with Dane's troops. And dropping the ball with Sylux on A-25. She's not enough. And as the military is right now, we're not enough."


End file.
